Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Police (Recruitment)

Sir G. Sinclair: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in view of the rise of 6·7 per cent. in indictable offences in England and Wales during the first nine months of 1968 and of the shortages of manpower in many police forces, if he will now review his instructions to police authorities to limit from 1st April their recruitment to a small percentage of the vacancies at 31st March in their uniformed establishment.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan): I have authorised an increase of 2,000 police officers in England and Wales for the financial year 1969–70. This is twice the rate of increase authorised for this year.

Sir G. Sinclair: How can the Home Secretary expect people to swallow that as an adequate Reply, especially in Surrey, where the increase in serious crime last year was 23·5 per cent.? Would he not agree that this limitation itself is an inhibiting factor on recruitment, because it tends to show that the Government do not have a proper priority for their basic responsibility of the fight against crime?

Mr. Callaghan: That is a good party speech, but it does not represent the facts. It so happens that this figure will be larger, in terms of actual increase in strength, than for six out of the last eleven years, including some years when the hon. Gentleman's party was in power. I can claim to stand comparison with anything that the hon. Gentleman's party did as a Government in this matter. Of course, the overall strength of the service is much

larger than it was then. If we get away from that kind of thing, we have to consider what the forces can do in the matter of recruitment, when keeping up their standards to establishment. I had a careful check made on that.

Mr. Hogg: How far does the figure of 2,000 mentioned in the right hon. Gentleman's original reply represent an increase on the policy previously announced under the economy measures? Will he not recognise that not only the increase in crime but also the duties in relation to the control of demonstrations and the discouraging effect of limitations on recruitment have to be taken into account in arriving at the proper figure?

Mr. Callaghan: These figures do have to be taken into account. This simple figure neglects the fact that there will be 600 additional traffic wardens this year to relieve the police of some of their duties, and 1,000 additional civilians this year who will also relieve the police of some of their internal functions; so the figures can be out even more. These figures must be looked at in addition to the other figures. I have looked at a number of forces and, although it is not universally true, a number of them, if they manage to get the figures they have been allocated for this year, will do better than they have done for many years past, even when recruitment was unrestricted.

Fireworks (Accidents)

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what were the numbers of adults and children, respectively, who suffered serious or minor injury as a result of firework accidents in each of the years 1964 to 1968, inclusive; and if he will take steps to make it necessary to obtain a licence in order to purchase fire works.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees): The figures for 1968 are not yet available, but I hope to publish them shortly. The figures for 1964 to 1967 were given in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester. Blackley (Mr. Rose) on 7th March, 1968. I am not at present satisfied that there is a case for restricting the sale of fireworks to licensed purchasers.—[Vol. 760, c. 131–2.]

Mr. Roberts: Would my hon. Friend not agree that some attempt must be made to reduce the dreadful number of injuries due to this cause? Would he accept that the simple way to do this would be to confine fireworks to organised displays, so that firms or groups or individuals would have to obtain a licence to buy fireworks?

Mr. Rees: I realise the problem. Between 1962 and 1967, the total number of casualties fell by nearly 30 per cent. and the total number of severer casualties fell by nearly 65 per cent., so we are making progress.

Mr. Loveys: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that a very high proportion of these accidents are caused by home-made fireworks? What action is he taking to ensure that sodium chlorate is sold in a form which will make it less effective as an explosive compound?

Mr. Rees: I will have a look at that last point. I do not think that a large number of accidents are due to homemade fireworks. A proportion are, but most of them occur at firework parties at home.

Minor Offences

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of the fact that many workers plead guilty to minor offences rather than plead not guilty and thus have to attend court and lose wages, he will introduce legislation to enable minor offenders who do not wish to appear in court to submit a written plea of not guilty together with their reasons for this plea.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): No legislation is necessary for this purpose; but if a defendant wishes to dispute the facts the court is unlikely to be able to reach a satisfactory decision without hearing oral evidence.

Mr. Roberts: Would my hon. Friend agree that if courts were encouraged to accept such a plea and if forms were issued enabling people to plead not guilty, it would considerably reduce the pressure in many magistrates' courts? Does he further agree that it would make the system more akin to justice in that

there would be a reduction in the tendency for industrial workers to plead guilty to avoid losing a day's pay?

Mr. Morgan: I do not think my hon. Friend can have understood the position. At present it is open to a defendant to do no more than write to the court, giving his reasons for pleading not guilty. It is inevitable that the court will take into account that such evidence has not been given on oath and the defendant has not been subject to cross-examination.

Mr. Carlisle: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that, although an accused man might not lose a day's work, all the prosecution witnesses would have to give up a day's work merely because the accused had decided to put in a written dispute of the charge?

Mr. Morgan: I would not dispute that.

Demonstrations

Mr. Jopling: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will take steps to designate a large open space such as part of Wimbledon Common or Richmond Park to be equipped with full Press and television facilities, and to be used for demonstrations, so that both police and property can be less subject to frequent disorderly attacks.

Mr. Callaghan: No, Sir.

Mr. Jopling: No one wants to stop demonstrations, but why should police, visitors to London and property-owners be subject to hustling and violence every Sunday? Is not the time coming when these demonstrations must be put in places where people are not put to inconvenience but where they can have full publicity?

Mr. Callaghan: I always associate Wimbledon and Richmond with tennis and polo, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to have demonstrations up in the Lake District no doubt he will put in a bid. However, I feel that we cannot very easily order people where they are to demonstrate.

Mr. Ogden: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he


will now cause an inquiry to be made into methods for the better personal protection of police engaged in the maintenance of law and order during political protests, marches, demonstrations, or civil commotions or disorders.

Mr. Callaghan: I keep these matters under review in consultation with chief officers of police and do not think any special inquiry is necessary.

Mr. Ogden: But would not my right hon. Friend agree that the standard police helmets help to identify rather than protect, and that the police officer who was injured in the Grosvenor Square demonstration would have been less severely injured if he had been wearing a standard crash helmet rather than his rather stupid police helmet? Will my right hon. Friend ensure that crash-type helmets are available to police in such circumstances?

Mr. Callaghan: I appreciate my hon. Friend's point, but there is a serious matter for consideration in relation to distinguishing the particular type of police who are dealing with these demonstrations. The Commissioner's view, which I share at the moment, is that this should be regarded as the duty of the ordinary policeman and the public are expected to respond in the corresponding manner. If they do not, as I have said on many occasions, I trust that the courts will take due note of what has happened.

Parliamentary Boundaries Commissions (Reports)

Mr. Ridley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he now expects to receive the reports of the Parliamentary Boundaries Commissions.

Mr. Callaghan: The Commissions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland will submit their reports before November, 1969.

Mr. Ridley: Did the right hon. Gentleman see the article in the Sunday Times saying that he had decided firmly and irrevocably not to implement the Commissions' reports? As this would be grossly improper, will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to deny it and say that he has every intention of implementing them as soon as possible?

Mr. Callaghan: No doubt the hon. Gentleman knows that if he had attempted to put that question on the Order Paper he would not have been allowed to do so because neither he nor I is expected to comment on Press reports.

Mr. Hogg: Surely the Secretary of State is now in a position to give an assurance that he will implement his statutory duty to put into effect the Boundaries Commissions' reports as soon as may be and, in any event, before the next General Election?

Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. and learned Gentleman may be well aware that I am aware of my statutory obligations.

Sir D. Renton: It is six years since various county boundary changes were made affecting the counties of Huntingdon, Peterborough, Cambridge, the Isle of Ely, Bedford and Northampton. There are certain non-controversial Parliamentary boundary changes which should follow as a matter of course. How long will those Parliamentary boundary changes be held up?

Mr. Callaghan: I shall consider the matter when I receive the Commissions' reports.

Mr. Ogden: Since there may well be wide changes made in local government boundaries in the very near future, would it not be foolish to base Parliamentary boundaries on present local government boundaries?

Mr. Callaghan: I note that there seem to be opposing views on both sides of the House.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: In view of the delay in the reorganisation of Welsh local government boundaries, may I have an assurance that the same delay will not happen when the right hon. Gentleman has the report of the Welsh Commission on Parliamentary Boundaries?

Mr. Callaghan: The Act clearly lays down my obligations, and until I am relieved of those obligations they will have to be carried out. If I have any proposals to be relieved of them, I will bring them to the House.

Mr. Blackburn: Might not my right hon. Friend have some difficulty in carrying out the Opposition's wishes, because


I understand that they are preparing for an election this October?

Mr. Callaghan: Election considerations would never enter my mind.

Mr. Ridley: In view of the thoroughly unsatisfactory nature of the right hon. Gentleman's last reply, I give notice that I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Leave to Appeal (Application)

Mr. Tinn: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the action of his Department which caused the delay in the hearing of an application for leave to appeal about which the hon. Member for Cleveland first wrote to him on 11th September, 1968.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: The Home Office was not responsible for this regrettable delay, which, as has been explained to my hon. Friend, occurred because the trial papers were not sent promptly to the Registrar of Criminal Appeals by the clerk of the peace. I am informed that the clerk has taken steps to prevent similar delays in future. My right hon. Friend has recently reminded all clerks of assize and clerks of the peace that every effort should be made to expedite the supply of trial papers to the Registrar.

Mr. Tinn: I welcome that reply and the action which has been taken. Which Minister is responsible for the actions of clerks of the peace? Apparently the Lord Chancellor is not. My constituent might well have been detained unnecessarily for four months had his appeal been upheld purely as a result of mistakes in the office of the clerk of the peace.

Mr. Morgan: The Home Secretary does not appoint clerks of the peace and they are not answerable to him for the conduct of their business. However, he has a concern in the efficient administration of justice and, for this reason, he has sent the circular referred to in the Answer.

Escalators (Safety)

Mr. Goodhew: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce regulations governing the provision of warning notices

in connection with escalators installed in stores and other public places.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: My right hon. Friend has no power to make such regulations, but the associations concerned have agreed to recommend to their members that suitable warning notices should be displayed on all escalators in departmental stores and multiple shops. I understand that the London Transport Board intends to take similar action where appropriate in Underground stations.

Mr. Goodhew: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a number of children have had to have legs or feet amputated as a result of soft-soled shoes getting caught in the side of escalators? The situation is aggravated by the fact that invariably they are advised to hold on to the rail, which means that they have their feet in the most dangerous position. Has the hon. Gentleman drawn attention to this?

Mr. Rees: We are aware of this matter and are discussing it with various bodies. The existing statutory powers relating to escalators come under the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, which was passed for a different purpose. We are doing all that we can to help.

Mr. Goodhew: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce regulations governing the safety of escalators in stores and other public places.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: My right hon. Friend has no power to make such regulations. But a British Standard dealing with lifts and escalators is expected at the end of April, and if this introduces any new safeguards for members of the public my Department will do all it can to see that these are adopted.

Mr. Goodhew: Has the hon. Gentleman considered the possibility of seeking powers to make these accidents notifiable so that the size of the problem may be assessed? Also, has he considered requiring micro-switches to be installed so that the machinery cuts out the moment that there is an obstacle in the way?

Mr. Rees: I do not think that there is need for action on the first part of the supplementary question, but I will look


at the matter. I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said in the last part, which I will pass on to our scientific advisers.

Mr. Fahrner (Entry Permit)

Dr. Gray: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why he allowed a foreign visitor to enter this country on the sole condition that he undertook not to study Scientology during part of his stay.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Mr. Fahrner was refused leave to land in accordance with the statement made to the House on 25th July, 1968. Subsequently he said that he had reasons for coming here other than the study of Scientology, and he was granted leave to land for two weeks. This took a considerable time and accounted for the delay Mr. Fahrner experienced at the airport. He left the country the following day.

Dr. Gray: Is it not absurd to prohibit adults visiting this country to study Scientology or any other philosophy or religion? More importantly, as the whole matter is sub judice and the subject of investigation by a committee, should not my hon. Friend be impartial and lift all bans on Scientologists visiting this country meanwhile?

Mr. Rees: No, Sir.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Can it seriously be said that Scientology is a religion, and are there not hundreds of parents who have been very upset that their children have been sucked into Scientology, have wasted money and been mentally upset?

Mr. Rees: An inquiry is taking place to answer these philosophical questions.

Fireman Liptrott (Death)

Mr. Robert Howarth: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what reply he has sent to the representations made to him regarding the operation of the 1968 Amendment Order to the Firemen's Pension Scheme Order, 1966, following the death of Fireman Liptrott of Bolton in April, 1968, while trying to rescue three children from a gas-filled cavity at Brackley Colliery.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Discussions have taken place with the representatives of

the local authority associations and of the fire service associations at a meeting of the Joint Pensions Committee of the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Councils. The matter is now being considered.

Mr. Howarth: Will my hon. Friend say if the municipal corporations and the Fire Brigades Union gave approval to the 1968 Amendment Order? If so, does not the approval of such a restricted range of qualifications show remarkable lack of foresight?

Mr. Rees: Agreement was reached, but I would rather offer no comment on it. It is being discussed at the moment.

Crowd Control

Mr. Judd: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance he has issued to police forces on riot control.

Mr. Callaghan: There is standing machinery for discussion of operational matters of this kind between the Home Office and chief officers of police; but the general answer to my hon. Friend's Question is that, with my approval, the police have no intention of departing from their traditional methods when dealing with crowds and demonstrations.

Mr. Judd: Will my right hon. Friend agree that there is widespread admiration throughout the world, as well as in this country, for the record of the British police in crowd control, and will he continue to assure the police that the House will support them if they resist all temptation to take short cuts which are likely to become counter-productive.

Mr. Callaghan: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. He has expressed a general view which is held not only in this country but outside. There are at the Police College courses for senior officers, which cover public order and the control of demonstrations. All officers in the Metropolitan Police district are given special training, and my hon. Friend may assume that they are well aware of the manner in which it is our general conclusion that they can best control the unruly minority who try their patience so sorely.

Mr. Clegg: Is the Home Secretary fully satisfied that the police have all the legal powers they need to deal with


riots and disturbances on private property, in particular within the precincts of universities and other educational establishments?

Mr. Callaghan: That is another question. There are difficult matters concerning the law of trespass, but I am not persuaded that the police need any more powers to enter upon universities, nor am I satisfied that this is the best manner of handling that situation.

Gaming (Overseas Investments)

Mr. Judd: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is taking to control the increase of United States investment in gambling in Great Britain.

Mr. Callaghan: The Gaming Act, 1968, provides that no one may apply for a licence to promote commercial gaming except with the consent of the Gaming Board, which must first be satisfied of his trustworthiness, taking into account his financial backing. One of the objects is to exclude investment from undesirable sources, whether here or overseas.

Mr. Judd: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply, may I ask if he will specifically refute the allegations in the Wall Street Journal last November that American gangsters were planning big investments in British gambling and assure the House that, whatever may be the pressures in terms of the balance of payments and so on, we shall continue to exercise the strictest possible control?

Mr. Callaghan: The Exchange Control Regulations provide us with an appropriate way of ensuring liaison between the Treasury and myself on questions of foreign investment and gambling. On the allegations about the Mafia, I obviously have no idea what they are planning, but if they were to try to establish a foothold here, there are many weapons in our armoury for repelling that undesirable organisation.

Mr. Hogg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is widespread anxiety that he should bring in the Regulations and use his powers under the recent Act, as there is widespread uncertainty as to the future, which uncertainty can only be dispelled by the

exercise of those powers in a clear manner.

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, Sir, but I do not think that that has any relationship to the original question.

Aliens

Sir J. Langford-Holt: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how the total number of aliens admitted to the United Kingdom with or without work permits in 1967 and 1968 compare with the figures of 48,878 in 1965 and 48,637 in 1966.

Mr. Callaghan: The figures quoted by the hon. Member refer to aliens admitted with work permits. Comparable figures for 1967 and 1968 are 45,867 and 45,142, respectively.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Does the right hon. Gentleman relate the number of permits granted to the capacity of this country to assimilate aliens or to the number of applications which he receives?

Mr. Callaghan: The permits are issued in accordance with a request either from those who wish to come here or from employers in this country who wish to employ them. Apart from that, there is no limitation, except the limitation of time that has been put on them.

Immigrants

Sir J. Langford-Holt: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in cases where immigrants holding vouchers have been accompanied or been followed by dependants, what is the maximum number of dependants which have been admitted for one such voucher holder in each of the last three years; and what is the average number of dependants admitted for voucher holders with dependants in these years.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: It is not possible to answer the first part of the hon. Member's Question. But the figures suggest that about three dependants have entered for each voucher holder, their entry being spread over eight to 10 years.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: What does the Home Office consider to be a dependant in relation to the directness or remoteness of relationship?

Mr. Rees: This comes in the Regulations and in the Act. The main dependants are the wife and children under the age of 16. In certain cases on compassionate grounds children between 16 and 18 may be included, but principally children under 16 and the wife are the main dependants.

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many would-be immigrants were refused entry into the United Kingdom in 1968 and returned to the country of their origin; what was the cost to public funds of their return fares; and what estimates he has made for 1969.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: In 1968, 4,060 aliens and 2,570 Commonwealth citizens were refused admission to the United Kingdom. The cost of repatriation is met from public funds in only a small number of cases. In 1968 the cost was £16,500, and I expect expenditure in 1969 to be of the same order.

Sir G. Nabarro: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the Home Office is now making progress with the examination of the admissibility of these people at the point of departure instead of at the point of arrival and how soon we may expect some progress in that important reversal of procedure?

Mr. Rees: I should point out to the hon. Gentleman that this refers to aliens as well as to Commonwealth citizens. We are looking very closely into this concerning Commonwealth citizens. But concerning aliens, visas would be involved if the hon. Gentleman's plan were taken up. Visas have been abolished in Europe by most countries for the last 20 years, and it would be regarded as a retrograde steps to reintroduce visas in a Europe which has become freer.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House how much has been paid out from public funds in the last year, say, to help immigrants already here who wish to go home?

Mr. Rees: That is not my responsibility. The hon. Gentleman should put down that Question to the Department of Health and Social Security.

Mr. Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether

he will seek to arrange for trained teams of officials to test the applications of immigrants in their countries of origin instead of when they arrive at ports and airports in Great Britain.

Mr. Callaghan: Posts overseas in the main Commonwealth centres of immigration to the United Kingdom are already staffed to assess applications for entry certificates. Every effort has been made to publicise the desirability of immigrants applying for certificates. If the hon. Member has it in mind that certificates should be made compulsory, I would refer him to what I said in the Expiring Laws Continuance debate on 13th November.

Mr. Fisher: Surely it would be more efficient and more humane to test these applications at source than to keep a lot of people hanging about the ports and airports of this country and perhaps having to repatriate them at more expense, and disappointment to themselves, if their applications are not successful?

Mr. Callaghan: On the surface that seems an attractive argument until one penetrates it further. There are many difficulties. I am not sure that it would be either to our advantage or to the advantage of those coming here. I repeat my previous suggestion that, as this is a detailed administrative matter, I should like a body, like the Select Committee which has been set up with the agreement of the House, to go into the question. I am not yet satisfied that administratively this would be an improvement. There is no issue of principle here, and if it could be proved to work I should certainly consider it.

South Vietnamese N.L.F. Delegate (Visa)

Mr. Winnick: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his Department's present policy towards granting permission for the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front representatives to attend the Easter meeting of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Mr. Callaghan: A United Kingdom visa will on application be granted for this purpose to Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, a member of the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front Delegation in Paris.

Mr. Winnick: Is the Home Secretary aware that many people will be extremely pleased by the statement which he has made, as many of us have felt that the exclusion of N.L.F. representatives from entering Britain was totally unjustifiable?

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, Sir, I am aware that these views will be widely held. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told the House some time ago that anyone who is prepared to come here to make a positive contribution to peace in Vietnam would be encouraged, and I trust that this lady is coming for that purpose.

Mr. Lubbock: Does the Home Secretary recall that when previous applications for visas have been made by members of the N.L.F. or people from North Vietnam these have been refused by the Home Office? How has he arrived at this decision which, although very welcome, conflicts with those made on previous occasions?

Mr. Callaghan: Because there has been a change of circumstances which may have escaped the notice of the hon. Gentleman.

State-owned Licensed Premises

Mr. Kenneth Baker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why the profits of the State-owned licensed premises in Carlisle and Scotland have declined from £284,281 in 1963–64 to £186,896 in 1967–68; and what steps he is asking to reverse the trend.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Since 1963 there has been a progressive increase in costs, which, in pursuance of Government policy, have not been fully passed on to the consumer. There is constant search for improvement in the efficiency and profitability of State management.

Mr. Baker: Does not the Minister agree that State-owned pubs are a very bad investment for the British taxpayer, since their profits go down while the profits of private brewers and pubs go up? From his answer, do I take it that the lucky citizens of Carlisle, Gretna and Cromarty are enjoying subsidised beer prices?

Mr. Rees: What it means is that they get cheaper beer because they drink beer from State concerns.

Mr. Ron Lewis: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the profits would have been much greater had not so much money been ploughed back in improving the State management schemes for hotels and pubs?

Mr. Rees: Yes, a great deal of investment is taking place.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will sell the licensed premises owned by the State in Carlisle, Gretna and Cromarty.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: This suggestion does not commend itself either to my right hon. Friend or to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Baker: Does the Minister not recognise that State pubs are the last sacred red cows of Socialism, and would it not be better to sell them and spend the proceeds on better schools, hospitals and roads?

Mr. Rees: Mr. David Lloyd George of the day would be very surprised to find himself cast as the progenitor of a Socialist red cow, but we think that they are a good investment and provide a good service.

Mr. Ron Lewis: Will not my lion. Friend confirm that all previous Tory Home Secretaries have refused to denationalise the State pubs, and is not this good evidence that they should continue as they are?

Mr. Rees: One other factor to take into account is that there is little doubt that private enterprise would shut down the brewery at Carlisle, which would add to the unemployment problem.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the main reason why the Conservative Party did not denationalise these pubs was that the local Conservative hon. Members represented to the Ministers involved that the likely increase in the cost of beer might lose them their seats?

Mr. Rees: It is true that some politicians are two faced.

Mr. Hogg: rose—

Mr. Baker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman raises what I think is his point of order now, he will prevent his right hon. and learned Friend intervening from the Front Bench.

Mr. Hogg: While accepting from the Under-Secretary of State that the true progenitor of this scheme was Mr. David Lloyd George, will he not recognise that, quite apart from the question of private enterprise against public enterprise, the central Government are not necessarily the best controllers of a few localised pubs in a given district and that there are alternative ways in which they could be organised without prejudice to employment in Carlisle?

Mr. Rees: I agree that public ownership has many forms.

Mr. Baker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the thoroughly Socialist doctrinaire Answers that those supplementary questions have received—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must give notice in the conventional way.

Mr. Baker: I would beg leave to give notice that I will seek to raise the matter after the Conservatives have won the next General Election.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must take note of what the Chair says.

Christmas Day

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in view of the difficulties arising out of Christmas being celebrated in mid-week, as occurred last year, whether he will consult with the churches and other interested bodies on the possibility of Christmas being celebrated on the last Sunday in December.

Mr. Callaghan: I have no reason to believe that there is any widespread opinion in favour of a change in the traditional date.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is the Home Secretary aware that, since I made the suggestion in the New Year that Christmas

might be celebrated on a Sunday, there has been considerable support for the idea? Is he further aware that the Churches have no theological objection, since it is agreed that Christ was not born on 25th December? Is he further aware that a lot of people consider that it would be more orderly to make Christmas Day a Sunday and so avoid the muddle which arises when it occurs in the middle of the week?

Mr. Callaghan: This is not a matter of orderliness and, whatever support the hon. Gentleman may have secured from outside, he has only 13 signatures to his Motion, which does not suggest that there is much demand in this House for a change. As for the Churches, I have had no initiatives coming from them and, in view of the length of time that it has taken to try to make a fixed Easter, I do not think that I want to embark on this one until we have settled that one.

Mr. Tinn: Nevertheless, I hope that my right hon. Friend will not close his mind entirely to this suggestion because, if the idea were properly canvassed, there might be a good deal of support for it, not least amongst housewives.

Mr. Callaghan: If I am to judge from what happens in my own household, a housewife counts the number of days for which she has to prepare without the shops being open. I do not know whether deciding on a fixed day would make much difference to that. I would not like to encourage any thought that we could embark upon this suggestion. Our experience in attempting to get a fixed Easter must make anyone chary of attempting to get this one through, too.

Constitutional Commission

Mr. Marten: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will advise that the terms of reference of the Commission on the Constitution should include consideration of the possible reduction in the numbers of Members of Parliament.

Mr. Callaghan: The terms of reference would not rule out a recommendation on this point as a consequence of other recommendations the Commission might make.

Mr. Marten: In view of the developments which might take place in both


regional and local government, does not the Home Secretary think that there is some merit in the proposition, particularly if regional governments could take some of the work load off Whitehall?

Mr. Callaghan: As I said in my original Answer, if these recommendations were considered by the Commission, this point might arise when it was discussing any consequential alterations. As regard the hon. Gentleman's general point, I dare say that we could all think of hon. Members whom we would be better without.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Would my right hon. Friend give an assurance that one of the terms of reference of the Constitutional Commission will be to consider whether, as a great percentage of our legislation does not apply to Northern Ireland, it is desirable to have 12 hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies voting on matters which do not concern them?

Mr. Callaghan: Having set up the Commission, I think that we should now allow it to get to work on the problems themselves, without expressing our views on the question, at any rate officially as a Government. I would remind my hon. Friend that the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Captain O'Neill, has agreed to the establishment of a panel to consider the constitutional relationships between Northern Ireland and this country, and I have no doubt that the Commission will want to examine what he has to say on the matter.

CS Smoke

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements he is making to issue to police forces fragmentation grenades, containing CS gas, designed to break into separate jet-propelled elements, which will slide along the ground at speed towards a crowd.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: None, Sir.

Mr. Dalyell: Good.

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what study his forensic department are making of the effect of CS gas on the old, the

weak, the young, and the pregnant; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: I would look to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence for scientific advice about the effect of CS smoke.

Mr. Dalyell: In fact, might not this be counter-productive if used?

Mr. Morgan: I am afraid that the subtlety of my hon. Friend's supplementary question escapes me. I should explain that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence arranged some time ago for further laboratory tests to be carried out. The results have not yet been fully analysed, but I understand that their trend so far has not disclosed any grounds for disquiet about the use of CS smoke in the strictly limited circumstances contemplated by the police, to deal with armed beseiged criminals and violently insane persons.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Rather than considering gas or grenades for the police, would the hon. Gentleman consider bringing in regulations to implement their pay settlement which was fixed on 12th September and for which they have been waiting for three months?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementary questions must arise out of Questions.

s.s. "Richard Montgomery" (Protection)

Mr. Boston: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the cost of the precautionary measures taken by his Department in investigating and frustrating a plan by students from a northern university or universities to interfere with the wreck of the s.s. "Richard Montgomery", off Sheerness; if he will call for reports from the relevant police authorities on the cost to public funds of the steps they took in the same matter; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: The Home Office was not involved. The Chief Contable of Kent has informed me that the cost to public funds of the measures taken by his force will be about £125 it the overtime performed is all compensated by overtime pay rather than time off.

Mr. Boston: Would my hon. Friend accept that this was a thoroughly


irresponsible exploit which, including yesterday's Answers, has cost a total of over £750 as well as causing considerable inconvenience to the police and other bodies? Would he further accept that the police, the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Defence and other bodies acted with commendable speed in dealing with this, and would he confirm that, so long as the extensive safety measures are observed and the wreck is not interfered with, there is no cause for anxiety?

Mr. Morgan: I agree with those remarks. Since there may be anxiety on this question, I should explain that, from the time that the activities of this group of students became known, the wreck was under constant observation by radar, a patrol boat of the Medway Conservancy Board and a police launch. On 3rd January a team of naval divers from H.M. Dockyard, Portsmouth, examined the wreck and reported that it had not been interferred with in any way.

Mr. Braine: Is the hon Gentleman aware that, with over 1,400 tons of T.N.T. in its holds, this wreck constitutes a serious hazard not merely to Sheerness but to the community on the Essex side of the Thames? Is he further aware that over a year ago local authorities were told that the Government were examining the possibility of a scheme for putting down a protective barrier by means of block ships? Can we have an undertaking from the hon. Gentleman that he will co-ordinate the various Government Departments concerned to get some decision on this?

Mr. Morgan: I will give that undertaking.

St. Paul's Cathedral (Disturbances)

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to prevent recurrence of the disorders which occurred at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul's on Wednesday, 22nd January, 1969.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: This is a matter for the Commissioner of Police for the City of London and the Cathedral authorities.

Sir G. Nabarro: Has the Home Office had conversations with these bodies about the disturbance which took place, which were manifestly against the public in-

terest, and have steps been taken to prevent them occurring in the future?

Mr. Morgan: No, Sir. This is not a matter for the Home Office. But a request was made by the Cathedral authorities to the City of London Police. If such a request were made again in the future, I am certain that it would be considered.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Is there not something very wrong with a law which makes it illegal for one citizen to call another "Nigger" but quite in order to call him "Roman scum", which was, I think, the expression?

Mr. Morgan: That is very much wider than the scope of the Question. Proceedings in this case were taken under Section 2 of the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act, 1860, which is appropriate to cover the case.

Foreign Missions (Protection)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further steps he is taking in view of the attack on South Africa House on 12th January to protect embassies and high commissions from violence.

Mr. Callaghan: The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis is well aware of the duty under the Diplomatic Privileges Act, 1964, to protect foreign missions in this country and will take any action necessary for this purpose.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does it follow from that Answer that the right hon. Gentleman can give an assurance that episodes similar to that mentioned in the Question will not be permitted in future?

Mr. Callaghan: Yes. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is aware of the previous Questions and Answers that have been given on this matter.

Drugs (Offences)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give an assurance arising out of the Report of the Committee on Cannabis under Lady Wootton of Abinger that he will not circularise magistrates advising on sentencing policy on drugs offences.

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does it follow from that highly satisfactory Answer that Press statements to the effect that the courts would be expected to be guided by this Report are wholly unfounded?

Mr. Callaghan: I am not fully cognisant of what the courts will take account, but I have no doubt that they will maintain their well-known independence on this as on other subjects.

Cinemas (Usherettes)

Mr. Silvester: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what number of usherettes is required by regulation to be present in cinemas; and when were the regulations last revised.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: The Cinematograph (Safety) Regulations require at least one attendant in the auditorium for every 250 people (or part of that number) present. In addition there must be at least one attendant on any floor or tier where up to 100 persons are present and two attendants on any floor or tier where more than 100 persons are present. The regulations relating to these matters were last revised in 1955.

Mr. Silvester: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in view of the changes taking place in the growth of multiple cinemas on the same site and as films are no longer inflammable, the time has come to review these regulations?

Mr. Rees: We will certainly look into it, but safety comes before economy.

Drugs

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further steps he intends to take to warn young people of the dangers of drug dependence, particularly on soft drugs and cannabis.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: The Home Office has begun talks about this question with the Health Education Council which has been set up by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Social Serivces.

Mrs. Short: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that reply. Will he bear in mind that, besides young people, parents, too, need guidance about the recognition of symptoms in young people who are on

drugs, and will he take urgent steps to deal with the problem?

Mr. Morgan: I will certainly bear that in mind. I should, however, say that publicity about drug dependence must be very carefully handled if it is not to be counter-productive.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Does my hon. Friend agree that the most important thing is to make sure that information is based on facts, not on pure romance?

Mr. Morgan: Yes, I accept that.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: As one who has seen young people recovering from the effects of cannabis and other soft drugs in remand homes, will the Under-Secretary make it clear to both parents and children that the effects flowing from these soft drugs are much longer-lasting than the effects, say, from alcohol.

Mr. Morgan: The view put forward by the hon. Gentleman endorses what was said in the debate on cannabis in this House a fortnight ago.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Mr. Ridley: asked the Prime Minister if he will arrange to meet President de Gaulle to discuss Great Britain's application to join the European Economic Community.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: asked the Prime Minister when he proposes to visit President de Gaulle.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart): I have been asked to reply.
I have nothing to add to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Henig) on 17th December.—[Vol. 775, c. 357.]

Mr. Ridley: Will the Foreign Secretary ask the French whether economic weakness is still a bar to membership of the European Economic Community? If so, will he ask them whether they intend to continue as members?

Mr. Stewart: The view to which the hon. Member refers has been expressed by the French Government. I do not


know that they have said anything to retract it. But I do not think that making the riposte that the hon. Gentleman suggests would necessarily help matters.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Prime Minister to make representations to General de Gaulle, when next they meet, about the havoc wrought by the French State in the national life and language of Brittany and about the torture of Breton Nationalists in French gaols? Will he urge the Prime Minister to cry from the steps of the Elysee "Breiz dishaul, Llydaw rydd, Bretogne libre"?

Mr. Stewart: This advice is all very interesting, and I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will note what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. Shinwell: Does my right hon. Friend consider that the Prime Minister's suggested journey is any longer necessary? Is it not obvious that we have abandoned the attempt to get into the Community through the front door and that we are now trying to get in through the tradesmen's entrance?

Mr. Stewart: As has been made clear many times it is our determination, and the view of all parties in the House, that we should persist with our application for entry.
Concerning the Prime Minister's suggested journey, the Answer to which I referred, which my right hon. Friend gave in December, was to the effect that he has no plans to make such a visit at present.

Mr. Heath: Whilst we appreciate the Foreign Secretary answering Questions here today, may I ask whether he can tell the House why he is not in his rightful place taking part in discussions on European unity in Bonn?

Mr. Stewart: Partly because I am here to answer the right hon. Gentleman's question.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRESIDENT NIXON (MEETING)

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Prime Minister what progress he has made in his discussions for a meeting with the President of the United States of America.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Prime Minister if dates have now been finalised for his meeting with the President of the United States of America; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Turton: asked the Prime Minister what steps he has taken to seek an opportunity to discuss with the President of the United States of America the problems of world finance and world trade.

Mr. M. Stewart: I have been asked to reply.
I would refer to the answer my right hon. Friend gave on Tuesday to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Boston).—[Vol. 777, c. 289–90.]

Sir Knox Cunningham: While the whole country welcomes with real pleasure the visit of the President to this country, may I ask the Secretary of State whether he can say if it is true that at this stage a visit by the Prime Minister to Washington was not welcomed?

Mr. Stewart: No. That seems a very silly statement by the hon. Gentleman. I am glad that he is pleased that President Nixon is coming here.

Sir Knox Cunningham: I am very pleased.

Mr. Stewart: It is nice to find that the hon. Gentleman is pleased about something.

Mr. Molloy: Will my right hon. Friend convey to the Prime Minister the feelings of many people in this country about the protracted negotiations in Paris to seek a peace solution in Vietnam, and will he offer his help? Will my right hon. Friend also draw the attention of the President of the United States to the deep feelings in this country about our apparently having to be compelled to associate ourselves with the vulgar régime in Greece?

Mr. Stewart: I have no doubt that Vietnam will be one of the subjects discussed and that we shall be discussing the problems of N.A.T.O. I think we are all concerned that the fastest progress should be made in the Paris talks and if at any time our position as co-Chairman enables us to help in this matter we shall certainly do so.

Mr. Turton: Will the right hon. Gentleman convey to the Prime Minister that any joint initiative such as suggested by the Atlantic Trade Study Group towards a solution of the world's trade and finance problems would meet with general support in the country?

Mr. Stewart: I shall convey that view to the Prime Minister. These matters are a topic of continuing importance both for the United States and for ourselves, and we shall be glad to have an exchange of views with the new President.

Mr. Boston: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is an excellent thing that this meeting is taking place so speedily? Does he also agree that the speech last week by President Nixon in favour of encouraging freer trade is very welcome indeed, and does not this lend support to the idea that more consideration should be given to alternatives such as the Atlantic free trade proposal?

Mr. Stewart: I do not accept the implication at the end of my hon. Friend's question, but I am glad that he referred to President Nixon's recent speech, which has been welcomed everywhere.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMON MARKET PRIME MINISTERS (MEETING)

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister when he next proposes to visit the Prime Ministers of the Common Market countries.

Mr. M. Stewart: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend is at this moment in Germany for discussions with the Federal German Chancellor and he has no plans at present to visit other Heads of Government of Common Market countries.

Mr. Marten: But, in the meantime, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be totally wrong for us to seek to isolate France by creating new institutions without her? Is not this virtually what the Government are trying to do by holding this meeting under Western European guise, from which France is being isolated?

Mr. Stewart: No, Sir. It has never been our desire to isolate the French

from any of these discussions, but we have had to take the view that we cannot abstain from any kind of co-operation in Europe solely because the French are not able to come with us.

Mr. Henig: Accepting that there is no chance of Britain's entry into Europe without the agreement of France, should not a very high place now be given on his right hon. Friend's agenda to the highest possible level meeting with the French Government?

Mr. Stewart: It is true that no nation can enter the E.E.C. without the agreement of all those who are already in. Although it is the French objection which blocks our entry, this is not a matter solely for bilateral discussions between the French and ourselves. This is something which affects the whole of Western Europe.

Sir C. Osborne: As the French Government show no sign of withdrawing their opposition to our entering the Common Market, would not it be more dignified if we were to withdraw our application, and stop seeking to get in on our knees?

Mr. Stewart: I do not think that that makes sense. The decision by this House to seek entry to the Common Market was taken after very full debate, and by an overwhelming majority of the House, and for solid reasons. Those reasons are still valid.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Would not it be more constructive to invite the Common Market Prime Ministers for a lengthy stay here, so that they and their camp followers can enjoy the advantage of lower food prices, and we can discuss here the need for a West German signature to the non-proliferation treaty?

Mr. Stewart: There are a great many channels through which we can, and do, keep in touch with the Governments of all the Common Market countries, and, as I said, my right hon. Friend is at present in Germany discussing these matters and the ones to which my hon. Friend referred with the German Chancellor.

Mr. Heath: On the question of political discussions, can the right hon. Gentleman clear up what the Prime Minister failed to elucidate last Tuesday, and that is the question of the real position about


the discussion on the Middle East situation? Is it not a fact that this was on the agenda for ministerial discussion, but that no discussion took place? What were the British Government hoping to achieve by having it discussed at a lower level in London at a separate meeting which would obviously embarrass the French?

Mr. Stewart: The matter was down for ministerial discussion at Luxembourg, and was discussed, but, as I said, in the Luxembourg discussions the time for discussing this matter was so limited that we felt there would be an advantage, in view of the forthcoming Four Power meeting, to have a fuller opportunity to consult our friends in Europe. I can see no reason why this should isolate the French. We would welcome their participation in this.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL COLLABORATION

Mr. Moonman: asked the Prime Minister what initiatives he intends to take in the next few months with Heads of Governments of European Economic Community countries concerning European scientific and technological collaboration.

Mr. M. Stewart: I have been asked to reply.
I have nothing at present to add to what my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said on this subject in reply to supplementary questions by my hon. Friend and other hon. Members on the 16th of December.—[Vol. 775, c. 861–2.]

Mr. Moonman: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that it is sometimes absurd for hon. Members to say that we are either crawling, or jumping, into the front or back door of Europe, when the real issue is whether we can collaborate on research and development with other European countries to establish industries of innovation like oceanography, and a common procurement policy?

Mr. Stewart: I think that that is so, and technology is one of the fields in which we can proceed with useful cooperation with European countries, as indeed we are doing.

Mr. Rippon: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how the Government reconcile their fine words about the importance of European scientific and technological discussions, with their discreditable actions in matters such as the future of E.L.D.O. and C.E.R.N., and give some indication of the willingness of the Government to discuss, perhaps through the Council, or a Committee of the Council, of Europe, the possibility of setting up a European Technological Institute?

Mr. Stewart: Opportunities for that last suggestion may arise. As to E.L.D.O. and C.E.R.N., we made clear our reasons for this, that we do not believe it serves the interests of European technological co-operation to concentrate resources on projects which have not the viability or the justification, but we are concerned with practical forms of cooperation. We participate in the European Centre for Nuclear Research, and today we are signing the agreement setting up the European Molecular Policy Conference.

Oral Answers to Questions — AFRICA (CITIZENS OF ASIAN ORIGIN)

Mr. Evelyn King: asked the Prime Minister what proposals were made by him during the Commonwealth Conference to Presidents Obote, Kaunda and Nyerere in the matter of their policy regarding British citizens of Asian origin in these countries; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. M. Stewart: I have been asked to reply.
I have nothing to add to the report my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave to the House on the 21st of January following the Commonwealth Prime Minister's Meeting.—[Vol. 776, c. 249–64.]

Mr. King: Will the Government press our point of view in this matter, and use all possible diplomatic means—and there are many at our disposal—to bring these discussions to a successful conclusion?

Mr. Stewart: Yes, Sir. As I think the hon. Gentleman knows, there was some discussion on this matter with a number of Governments at the time of, though not as part of the proceedings of, the


Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. It is now a matter for bilateral discussions, which are proceeding.

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (CONVENTION)

Mr. Thorpe: Q9. Mr. Thorpe asked the Prime Minister when Her Majesty's Government now plans to ratify the United Nations Convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.

Mr. M. Stewart: I have been asked to reply.
I am glad to inform the House that Her Majesty's Government have decided that the United Kingdom shall ratify this Convention. The Instrument of Ratification will be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations in the very near future.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that statement will give pleasure in many parts of the House, and will command widespread support? Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that there is no foundation for the suggestion that the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act infringes Article 5 of the Convention which says that every State shall ensure the right of a national to return to his own country, and indeed his own right of nationality?

Mr. Stewart: We are satisfied that the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts, both of them, do not infringe this Convention, and we shall make this point clear at the time of our ratification.

Mr. Whitaker: Does the ratification apply to territory of Rhodesia of which we are the legal Government, and what steps are the Government taking to see that it is correctly applied there?

Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend knows that this is part of the general Rhodesian problem. At present Rhodesia in in the hands of an unlawful régime. We are not in a position to establish the human rights that we would wish to maintain in that country.

Mr. Evelyn King: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many other Commonwealth countries have ratified or are ratifying this Convention?

Mr. Stewart: Not without notice.

Mr. Howie: Can we have an assurance that our ratification of this Convention will be binding on the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Stewart: I do not think that I can give that assurance.

Mr. Paget: Would my right hon. Friend tell us what effect ratification in these circumstances has? It does not make the Convention part of our domestic law. Does it make it part of anything else?

Mr. Stewart: The way these things work is as follows. In international gatherings, Conventions of this kind are drafted and argued about. They set up standards of conduct which some nations manage to attain while others are on their way. It is because these standards are set up that we and other countries then carefully examine our practices to see that we are in line with the civilised world. That is what it is all for.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Heath: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 17TH FEBRUARY—Second Reading of the Family Law Reform Bill [Lords].
Remaining stages of the Pensions (Increase) Bill.
Motions on Double Taxation Relief Orders relating to Denmark, Seychelles, South Africa, Spain and Swaziland.
TUESDAY, 18TH FEBRUARY, and WEDNESDAY, 19TH FEBRUARY—Further progress on the Committee stage of the Parliament (No. 2) Bill.
THURSDAY, 20TH FEBRUARY—Motion on the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order.
At seven o'clock the Chairman of Ways and Means has named the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill and the Luton Corporation Bill for consideration.


Prayer on the Import Duties (Temporary Exemptions) (No. 6) Order, and a Motion on the Dawley New Town (Designation) Amendment (Telford) Order.
FRIDAY, 21ST FEBRUARY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY, 24TH FEBRUARY—Private Members' Motions until seven o'clock.
Afterwards, remaining stages of the Vehicle and Driving Licences Bill.

Mr. Heath: Last Thursday, the Leader of the House undertook to have discussions, through the usual channels, about the debate on the Government's White Paper on industrial relations. Can he now give us the firm assurance about the date for that debate? Secondly, can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House the date of the publication of the Government's White Paper on Defence?

Mr. Peart: On defence, it will be the 20th February. As to industrial relations, I noted what the right hon. Gentleman said last week. I expect to include arrangements for a debate in my statement next week.

Mr. Winnick: In view of the continuing difficulties of one or two national newspapers, can my right hon. Friend hold out any promise of a general debate on the Press before the Easter Recess?

Mr. Peart: No, Sir.

Mr. Peyton: Can the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity if she would be good enough to make a statement to the House next week on the very serious situation developing in the steel industry?

Mr. Peart: This is a very important industrial matter. I will convey the views of the hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend. If a statement is necessary, I am certain that it will be made.

Mr. Mendelson: Does my right hon. Friend recall that he undertook last week to consult his colleague the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs about a debate on foreign policy, with particular reference to European developments, before Easter? Has he got anything further to report?

Mr. Peart: I did convey the views of my hon. Friend to my right hon. Friend. I always do when he puts a point to me, as I do with every hon. Member. But I cannot find time for a debate next week.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Am I right in thinking that the right hon. Gentleman said that the Dawley Order was the second Prayer on Wednesday evening? If so, at what time and for how long will it be debated?

Mr. Peart: I said Thursday, not Wednesday. It will come on late in the evening.

Mr. Milne: Two subjects of greater importance than anything that my right hon. Friend has outlined for next week are European unity and the date of the Second Reading of the Development of Tourism Bill. Can he give us some information?

Mr. Peart: I cannot. I replied to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) earlier about the debate on foreign affairs, concerning European unity. This is a very important matter. I note what my hon. Friend has said. I cannot give a date for a debate on the Development of Tourism Bill.

Mr. David Steel: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect telling us that last Thursday he said that he would make a statement about the new Scottish Select Committee? Since he did not make it last Thursday, could he make it now?

Mr. Peart: I hope to have something on the Order Paper this evening.

Mr. Shinwell: Could my right hon. Friend say how many times he has conveyed the views of hon. Members to his right hon. Friends, and with what measure of success?

Mr. Peart: I always convey such views, and when my right hon. Friend intervenes such intervention lends strength to what I convey. This does not affect next week's business.

Sir R. Cary: Has the right hon. Gentleman any clue about the probable date of the Budget?

Mr. Peart: No, Sir.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Will my right hon. Friend give consideration to having a debate in the House on the question of the whole future of Select Committees?

Mr. Peart: I have noted this request. I am sure that my hon. Friend will have heard me speak not only the other day, but on a previous occasion, about it. I am anxious to see that the experiment should continue. There may be a debate, when we shall have to make an assessment.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us when he intends to provide time for a debate on item No. 33 of the remaining Orders on today's Order Paper?
[That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the allegations made by the Prime Minister at his Press Conference on 30th September, 1964, concerning which he promised a searching inquiry:
That the Committee do consist of fifteen Members:
That the Commitee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place and to admit strangers during the examination of witnesses unless they otherwise order; to report from time to time to the House, and to report Minutes of Evidence to the House from time to time:
That Seven be the Quorum.]
This Motion concerns the appointment of a Select Committee into allegations made by the Prime Minister concerning which the Prime Minister promised a searching inquiry. Is that not a little overdue, as the pledge was given on 30th September, 1964?

Mr. Peart: I know that hon. Members are somewhat nostalgic but I cannot find time for a debate next week.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: Has the Leader of the House seen Motion No. 151?
[That this House, being mindful of the lamentable failure of the English political parties to do their duty towards the smaller nations of this island, notes with approval the strong growth in Wales and Scotland of national parties dedicated to secure the conditions of full nationhood in those countries; deplores the decision

of the Government to use the device of a Constitutional Commission to obstruct the advance of the Scots and Welsh national parties, and so postpone national freedom for Scotland and Wales, and to assist the Government party in these countries in its efforts to hold some of its parliamentary seats there, but approves of the Government's long delay of seventeen weeks in publishing the names of the Commissioners; and urges it not to publish them at all but to drop the whole idea.]
Since this has dangerous implications for the future of the people of Scotland. Does he realise that many hon. Members on this side of the House would like an early opportunity to debate the implications of this policy decision, with its opposition to the setting up of a Constitutional Commission?

Mr. Peart: I have noted what my hon. Friend has said. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said something on this today and I have nothing further to add.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Will the Leader of the House provide time, at an early date, for a debate on the I.R.C., with particular reference to its take-over bid affecting employment in my constituency of Chelmsford?

Mr. Peart: I accept that this is an important matter—the whole place of I.R.C. But I cannot find time for a debate next week.

Mr. C. Pannell: When the Leader of the House is considering the request made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. R. C. Mitchell), will he consider that the time is now over-ripe for the implementation of the Report on the future activities of the Committee of Privileges? Does he agree that if this was implemented it might save us from a great many future distasteful debates?

Mr. Peart: I am aware of the importance of this matter. I know that my right hon. Friend feels very deeply on the whole question of privilege, but there are different arguments. It may be that we should have a debate, but I would rather wait a bit.

Mr. Hastings: Further to the important question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), will the


right hon. Gentleman recognise that the present muddle in the steel unions is a very serous matter, in which the Government are deeply involved? Is he aware that it is not a question whether the Minister thinks that a statement is necessary? The House must have one.

Mr. Peart: I cannot go on repeating myself. I thought that the reply which I gave was accepted by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). I said that I would convey his views to my right hon. Friend and that, if necessary, a statement would be made.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Can my right hon. Friend say anything about the introduction of a new Bill on merchant shipping, which hon. Members are eagerly awaiting?

Mr. Peart: Not at the moment.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that yesterday there were over 100 Questions down to the President: of the Board of Trade and that for the first day when Questions may be addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—when that right hon. Gentleman is top of the list to answer Questions—70 Questions have been tabled, which means that it is virtually impossible for back benchers to question either Minister? Is it possible to arrange for these two Ministers to answer Questions more frequently?

Mr. Peart: Once one asks for special concessions to be made about certain Departments one also asks for other Departments to be affected. We discuss this matter through the usual channels.

Mr. Howie: Would my right hon. Friend consider suspending the 10 o'clock rule next Thursday to ensure that both the Greater London Council Bill and the Luton Corporation Bill may be fully discussed?

Mr. Peart: I will look into that suggestion.

Mr. Evelyn King: The right hon. Gentleman will have seen an important statement in the Press about the reorganisation of the prison service. Is it his intention, as I hope it is, that the Home Secretary will make a statement about this in the House, since this is a matter of great interest to a wide public and

particularly to hon. Members who have prisons in their constituencies?

Mr. Peart: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says on this important matter and I will convey his remarks to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

Mr. W. Baxter: When my right hon Friend replied to the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) he seemed to suggest that a statement about the setting up of a Select Committee for Scotland would be made tonight. Would he elaborate on that, as I did not follow the nature of the procedure which he is proposing to adopt?

Mr. Peart: I said in reply to the hon. Gentleman that I would not be making a statement now. I then said that there might be something on the Order Paper. This is perfectly normal.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Will the Home Secretary be laying next week the necessary regulations to implement the police pay award which was made on 12th November and for which police forces throughout Britain have been waiting for over three months? Will he impress on his right hon. Friend the urgency of taking this step?

Mr. Peart: I will convey that point to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I have nothing to say on the matter in connection with next week's business.

Mr. William Hamilton: Would my right hon. Friend elaborate further on what he said about the Scottish Select Committee? Does he intend to put on the Order Paper tonight the names of members of that Committee before other Scottish hon. Members have been consulted or even advised about it?

Mr. Peart: I cannot be drawn into this. If hon. Members press me on the subject, then I must say that I am responsible. But I advise my hon. Friend, if he wishes to question the Motion when it appears, that he has his opportunity.

Mr. David Steel: On a point of order. Are you aware, Mr. Speaker, that my original question to the Leader of the House was to the effect that the right hon. Gentleman told the House last Thursday that he would be making a


statement? That statement has not been made.

Mr. Speaker: That is a point between the Leader of the House and the hon. Gentleman, and not for the Chair.

Mr. Lubbock: As eight hours were spent yesterday discussing two Amendments to the Parliament (No. 2) Bill, and since demands have already been made today for time to be provided to discuss 18 issues of vital importance to the House, would the right hon. Gentleman consider laying a timetable Motion before the Bill is further proceeded with next Thursday?

Mr. Peart: No, I could not accept that; and if there was any delay yesterday, then I suggest that the hon. Gentleman made a rather strange contribution himself.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Would my right hon. Friend find time next week for a debate on the assertion made by the Foreign Secretary, when he was answering Questions for the Prime Minister, earlier, that this House is still in favour of Britain's application to join the Common Market? If he cannot find time to debate this subject next week, will he find time for a debate during the week after next and arrange for a free vote?

Mr. Peart: I have noted with interest the demands that have been made on this subject. I will certainly convey such views to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Walden: Further to my right hon. Friend's reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell)—that he needed time to think about the Report of the Committee of Privilege—will he bear in mind that that Report came out in 1967 and that many hon. Members believe that the House could be spared continuing embarrassment if a decision were taken on the matter?

Mr. Peart: I am aware that the Report has been out a long time. If I were able to say that every hon. Member understood the Report, I would describe that as rather remarkable, since it is a difficult matter.

Mr. Russell Kerr: When may we expect the Government's reply to the last

Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries on the control of the nationalised industries?

Mr. Peart: I have nothing to say on that issue in connection with next week's business, but I will convey the point to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Henig: When making representations or re-representations to the Foreign Secretary, will my right hon. Friend try to ascertain whether it would be possible, before the Easter Recess, for the House to have more than a one-day debate on foreign affairs so that hon. Members will not have only one day on which to conduct a debate covering the whole of the universe and Mars as well?

Mr. Peart: I appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend. Many of my hon. Friends have made the same representation to me. I accept that if we are to have a debate on foreign affairs it would be far better to concentrate on one or two issues. I will do all I can in that direction.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: As there was an official and detailed statement and explanation of the Government's new economic plan in the Press yesterday, together with a statement that the House would not be officially informed on the subject until a fortnight's time, would my right hon. Friend arrange for this information to be presented to the House next Tuesday and, at the same time, enable us to debate why the Press was able to get this information before hon. Members?
Is my right hon. Friend aware that while Tuesday's business is not all that important, this matter is? If he cannot arrange for a debate next week, would he consider setting up a Select Committee to look into the matter?

Mr. Peart: I note with interest what my hon. Friend says, but I remind him that I am not responsible for Press speculation.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Despite what the Leader of the House said about being keen to limit the scope of debate on foreign affairs, how does he explain the fact that whenever we have a foreign affairs debate it is always worldwide?

Mr. Peart: The hon. and learned Gentleman is not quite correct. I arranged


a debate which enabled us to discuss Czechoslovakia and Biafra.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: In view of the reply which my right hon. Friend gave earlier about the Report of the Committee on Privileges would he confirm that that Report is written in the most lucid possible language and recommend all hon. Members to read it?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Excellent though the Report may be, we cannot debate it now. The hon. and learned Gentleman may, however, ask for time for it to be discussed.

Sir A. V. Harvey: In view of the speed with which the Foreign Secretary got through so many Questions to the Prime Minister, would the Leader of the House urge that right hon. Gentlemen to undertake this rôle rather more often, thus cutting out a lot of "flannel "?

Mr. Emrys Hughes: When the Leader of the House said that there might be "something on the Order Paper" about the Scottish Select Committee, is he not treating Scotland rather casually? Will he say whether or not there will be something on the Order Paper?

Mr. Peart: I ask my hon. Friend to wait—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Why?

Mr. Peart: I assure him that I am not treating Scotland casually. I thought that I had played a major part in this and that the establishment of a special Committee for Scotland would be welcome. I am surprised that my hon. Friend is being so churlish—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: But correct.

Mr. Peart: —about this. He must await my Motion and, while he is awaiting it, restrain himself.
In reply to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey), about Prime Minister's Questions, I am surprised that he should have been so sensitive about effective supplementary questions and the effective answers given by my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Lane: Can the Leader of the House assure us that the White Paper on Defence, which he said would be pub-

lished next week, will be no less frank than a recent article in a German newspaper by the Secretary of State for Defence?

Mr. Peart: I cannot vouch for that. I hope that it will be a very good White Paper.

Mr. W. Baxter: On a point of order. Did I hear my right hon. Friend aright telling my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) not to be churlish but to be patient until the Leader of the House takes upon himself the responsibility of giving the House information to which every hon. Member is entitled and which has apparently been made available to the national Press? That is not treating this House with the greatest respect. May I seek your guidance on the matter, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may certainly seek my guidance, but in the way he sought it he was making a point of audition rather than a point of order.

Mr. Peart: Further to that point of order. The information I will give to the House will not be anything that has ever been disclosed before.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: May I press my right hon. Friend—in an entirely un-churlish manner—to find time as soon as possible for a debate on monopolies and mergers? Many of us are concerned about the implications of a recent merger.

Mr. Peart: I am aware of this important matter, but I cannot find time for a debate next week.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Will the Leader of the House undertake to convey the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) to the Prime Minister?

Mr. Peart: I always convey views of hon. Members, but the hon. and learned Member is not being very clever today.

Mr. Orme: From my right hon. Friend's reply to the Leader of the Opposition on the Question of a debate on the White Paper "In Place of Strife", I assume that the debate will be in the week after next. Is it possible for us to have a two-day debate on this important subject, which


concerns wide constitutional as well as industrial matters?

Mr. Peart: I will consider this but my hon. Friend should note that we are pressed for time in the House.

BACON MARKET SHARING UNDERSTANDING

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement about the Bacon Market Sharing Understanding.
Negotiations for a renewed Bacon Market Sharing Understanding have now been completed and the new Understanding will be signed shortly.
The basic aim of the renewed Understanding will be to provide for the orderly marketing of bacon in the United Kingdom and to preserve stable prices at levels reasonable to both producers and consumers.
There are two main changes. First, there is no longer a specific percentage share of the market laid down for the United Kingdom. Instead, the United Kingdom, after consultation with the Bacon Market Council, will determine each year not only the total quantity of bacon required on the United Kingdom market, but also the expected level of bacon production in the United Kingdom. The difference between these figures will be shared among the exporting countries.
Secondly, the Understanding has been strengthened to ensure in a more positive way than in the present Understanding that our suppliers market in an orderly and a regular manner, as our own industry will also be expected to do.
The new Understanding takes effect on 1st April this year and will run for a term of three years. The situation will then be further reviewed.
The total market requirement for the first 12 months is 639,000 tons and the expected level of bacon production in the United Kingdom is 233,600 tons, an increase of about 15,000 tons on this year's estimated level. I am making a complete list of the tonnages for 1969–70 available now in the library and I shall circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
As soon as the Understanding has been signed, the full text, together with the letters continuing bilateral understandings with Denmark and the Irish Republic, will be published as a White Paper.

Mr. Godber: The flexibility which the Minister has just announced for the home producer is to be welcomed so long as it is flexibility to raise rather than to lower the home share. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman one or two questions?
The right hon. Gentleman referred specifically to consultation with the Bacon Market Council. Could he make clear that consultation will take place after the Price Review each year, not before, so that it will be upon a firm basis of understanding of the home producers' prospects?
Secondly, will the right hon. Gentleman agree that this agreement can help the home producer only if an adequate incentive is given in the forthcoming Price Review?
Thirdly, will the right hon. Gentleman further agree that the figure for home production which he hopes to achieve in 1969–70 is only just about getting back to the figure for 1964–65 when we left office?

Mr. Hughes: I will bear in mind the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion about the Bacon Council's meeting following the Price Review.
On the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, as he is aware, this is a matter for the Review, although it is worth remembering that this Government, through the bacon stabilisation arrangement, have already made a substantial contribution to the industry.
On the third part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, the bacon curing industry is making substantial progress under the arrangement which the present Government have set afoot.

Mr. Peter Mills: Will the Minister bear in mind that if we are to have a larger share of the home market the housewife and the consumer must have high-quality bacon and that this means that the British curer and farmer have to produce not only the right sort of pig, but the right sort of bacon? Will he give every encouragement towards this end both in incentives to the farmer and


the encouragement to the curer to see that the right sort of bacon is produced?

Mr. Hughes: I am anxious to encourage both the farmer and the bacon producer. There are producers who, as far as quality and price are concerned, are as good as anyone in the world, but I agree that the general standard needs to be raised.

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the statement he has made in any way conflicts with the agricultural policy associated with the Common Market, in particular, his statement that the agreement, when ratified by the various parties to it, will last three years? Is there any possibility of revision so as to get into the Common Market?

Mr. Hughes: These are purely hypothetical matters that my right hon. Friend has raised. The Understanding, which, I hope, will be signed before the end of the month, is certainly not in conflict with any agreement to which this country is a party.

Mr. Hooson: While I generally welcome the agreement, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has in mind a fixed percentage of increase for the home producer? Is it to be at the rate of 15,000 tons a year over three years, or is that expected to be the figure for the first year?

Mr. Hughes: If the hon. and learned Member will read carefully what I said, he will see that the basic difference is that under the old Understanding there was a British percentage share which could only be exceeded or changed under certain definite circumstances. Now, under the new Understanding, there will not be a United Kingdom percentage, but we will simply declare our estimated production. It is now up to the British curing industry.

Mr. Jopling: Regardless of specific incentives in this year's Price Review, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what the trends for the future are from our home production sources? If next year's production from British farmers is to be a little less than 37 per cent. of the market, what sort of percentage does the right hon. Gentleman envisage in the years beyond?

Mr. Hughes: Under this Understanding there is no percentage at all for the British product. This is the basic new principle for the new Understanding. An estimate is made at the beginning of each year of the amount of bacon the British producer can produce. The British producer is free to produce what he can, but he must compete as to quality and price with imported supplies.

Mr. Peyton: Could the right hon. Gentleman go as far as this? Does he say that as a result of the new arrangement he announced today the British bacon producer, assuming that the curing industry can play its part, will have a larger share of the market than he has had to date?

Mr. Hughes: If he competes as to quality and price there is no reason why he should not get a progressively larger share of the market.

Following is the list of tonnages:



Tons


United Kingdom
…
…
233,600


Denmark
…
…
302,850


Poland
…
…
50,310


Irish Republic
…
…
28,180


Sweden
…
…
11,010


Netherlands
…
…
8,160


Hungary
…
…
2,380


Rumania
…
…
1,500*


Yugoslavia
…
…
1,010


Total
…
…
639,000


*If Rumania decides to participate.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

Mr. Speaker: Before I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power to make a personal statement which he has asked me to allow him to make, may I remind the House that the rule about personal statements is that the House will admit them provided that Mr. Speaker has been informed of what the hon. Member proposes to say, and has given leave, and that if another hon. Member is involved in the personal statement he is generally allowed to give his own views of the matter and to say whether he accepts it or not.
It would be convenient to the House if a Minister or hon. Member who wished to make personal statements would let Mr. Speaker have a copy of it early, because he needs time to consider it.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. Reginald Freeson): I apologise, Mr. Speaker, if a copy of the statement was delayed. We did our best to get it to you in time.
With permission, I should like to make a short personal statement about a misunderstanding which arose during Question Time last Tuesday, when I may have appeared to have misled the House.
In reply to a supplementary question by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), I said that he was wrong in quoting 21 per cent. as the Central Electricity Generating Board's present plant margin. In fact, this figure had been given in a Written Answer by my right hon. Friend on 4th February.
The C.E.G.B.'s estimate of maximum demand in "average cold spell weather conditions" this winter was 36,700 megawatts, and this figure was used in the calculation of the 21 per cent. Subsequent information suggests, however, that a better estimate would be of 37,300 megawatts. On this later estimate the margin would be about 19 per cent.
At Question Time on Tuesday I was aware of the later estimate, but, of course, the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury could not be. I apologise to him if he considered my reply to be discourteous.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Peart.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[9TH ALLOTTED DAY] considered.

Orders of the Day — COMPULSORY CONTROL OF INCOMES

Mr. Speaker: At the beginning of the debate may I announce that I have selected the Amendment standing in the names of the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends.

4.1 p.m.

Mr. Robert Carr: I beg to move,
That this House, noting that the attempt to control incomes by law has failed in its purpose, is causing grave damage to industrial relations and is frequently unjust in its application, urges Her Majesty's Government to repeal these objectionable statutory powers forthwith.
From the very beginning, when these statutory powers were introduced in 1966, and repeatedly since then, we on this side of the House have warned that these statutory powers would not work, that they would fail in their purpose; and that is what has happened. We also said that, in so far as they did have effect, they would bite in such an arbitrary and uneven manner as to cause injustices and gross anomalies. That is what has happened. We also said that for little or no short-term economic gain they would do grave long-term damage to industrial relations; and they have.
The evidence for all this has been accumulating steadily and is now overwhelming. I ask the House to consider the record for 1968. In 1968, basic weekly wages rates rose by 6–9 per cent. for all industries and services and by 8–8 per cent. for manufacturing industry alone. That was the largest increase in any year since the present index began in 1956.
Basic hourly rates, as opposed to weekly rates, tell exactly the same sort of story. So does the increase in weekly earnings. Average weekly earnings for male manual workers over 21 between October, 1967, and October, 1968, rose by 7·6 per cent., markedly more than during the two previous years and well


above the average for the previous 13 years. Similarly, average hourly earnings from October, 1967, to October, 1968, rose by 6·9 per cent., also considerably faster than over the previous two years.
Thus we see in both wage rates and earnings that the increases in 1968 have been approximately double the 3½ per cent. ceiling set for 1968 and 1969 in last April's Prices and Incomes White Paper. The rates of increase of hourly earnings have returned to approximately the level that led up to the July, 1966, measures and the pay freeze.
The record for 1968 surely proves not only our basic contention that the attempt to control wages by law would not work, but also our very important subsidiary contention that compulsion feeds on itself and that with each successive year of statutory control more and more compulsion, applied over a wider and wider field, would be needed to produce less and less effect. That is what has happened.
We must also remember another feature of 1968. It was the year of the highest sustained level of unemployment since the war. Statutory incomes policy was originally advocated to the House as an alternative to higher unemployment. In fact, it has proved to be supplementary to it. So, in 1968, the Government achieved the highest levels of unemployment for nearly 30 years and the highest increase in wage rates for nearly 20 years, with the strongest-ever compulsory powers. One would have thought that such a combination of events would have been impossible. One must at least give credit for an achievement of perverted genius.
And all this for no conceivably adequate compensating benefit in return. Productivity, people may say. I can almost hear the right hon. Lady the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity saying it already. Of course productivity has risen—and a fine state we should have been in if it had not. However, it is impossible, even on the most optimistic interpretation of recent trends, to claim that the underlying rate of increase in productivity has doubled over the past year. Yet that is what would be necessary to justify the extent to which the increase in incomes has exceeded the ceiling laid down under the policy.
In any case, any argument about productivity is utterly disposed of by applying the Prime Minister's own chosen test, that which he laid down as an original justification for this policy when he addressed the House on 20th July. 1966, and used these words:
But the House will recognise that the whole operation stands or falls on the extent to which we can keep our costs and prices under control. In recent years money incomes have been increasing at a rate far faster than could be justified by increasing production; in 1965 we paid ourselves increases in money incomes of about £1,800 million compared with the previous year. About £1,300 million of this represented increases in wages and salaries. Over the same period we earned only £600 million by way of increased production."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1966; Vol. 732, c. 635.]
The same calculation, the same test as was chosen by the Prime Minister when applied to the latest available figures gives the following results. Between 1966 and 1967 money incomes rose by £1,500 million and production by £368 million. Between the third quarter of 1967 and the third quarter of 1968, the latest full 12-month period for which figures are available, money incomes rose by £1,566 million and production by £520 million.
Therefore, on the basis of the Prime Minister's calculation, on the Prime Minister's own chosen test and justification for this policy, and despite all the compulsory powers, money incomes have still been rising three times as fast as production. If any further proof is needed, I think that the House will agree that it is provided by comparison with what was achieved by the Conservative Government with no statutory powers following the pay pause of 1961.
When one compares the period following the pay pause of 1961 with the period following the pay freeze and the statutory powers of 1966 one finds that, in the earlier period, under Conservative Government with no statutory control, there were lower increases in earnings and prices and higher increases in productivity—all with lower levels of sustained unemployment.
I stress once again that, in rejecting statutory incomes policy, on the clear basis of proof which those figures provide, we on this side are not irresponsibly throwing overboard the idea that the movement of incomes in relation to


national production is a matter of very great importance. We have said before, and I say again, that any Government in present-day conditions must have a strong view about the movement in incomes and must try to influence it. The last Conservative Government did so and the next will also do so.
What we reject is the attempt to control wages by law, because while it causes very damaging economic and social side effects it is bound to be ineffective, at least unless it is embarked on as a very strong and long-term policy, a permanent policy.

Mr. John Mendelson: As the right hon. Gentleman does not want to control wages by law, how does he justify his party's proposals to put a legal straitjacket on trade unions and prevent them from properly organising their members and negotiating?

Mr. Carr: That is quite a different question, but I should like the hon. Gentleman to reflect that perhaps even he will one day come to realise what his right hon. Friend is beginning to realise before him, that a condition for the return to freedom, to the real independence in the details of free collective bargaining, is the acceptance by management and unions alike of a somewhat closer, stricter framework of rules—

Mr. Mendelson: A straitjacket.

Mr. Carr: —than has been practised in this country before, but which has been the custom in every other industrial country for many years.
So we reject the attempt to control wages by law. We also reject making incomes policy a major instrument of economic management, because in our view—a view which is now proved beyond argument by experience—to make it a major measure of economic management puts on it more weight than it can ever bear. So we say that much more success with far less damaging side effects can be obtained if one gets one's basic economic, fiscal and industrial policies right, which means very different from those of the present Government, and then uses voluntary means to influence incomes as a minor and supplementary rather than a major instrument of economic management. We say that the

record now proves beyond argument that we are right and the Government have been wrong.
So much for the fact that statutory control has failed in its purpose. I should now like to turn to another limb of our Motion, namely, that the policy has frequently been unjust in its application. The reasons for the unfairnesses and the gross anomalies are in many cases the same as the reasons why the policy has failed in its economic purpose. One could spend literally hours recounting the injustices and anomalies which the policy has brought about and is increasingly bringing about. I will put only a few examples before the House.
First, the legal control under this policy applies generally only to settlements affecting more than 100 people. Approximately, no fewer than 25 per cent. of all employees in manufacturing industry work in establishments with fewer than 100 employees, so they are immediately outside the general application of the policy. That in itself is grossly unfair to those who are caught in the bigger establishments. This is not just a theoretical point. Anyone who goes around industry will know that it is a practical point.
I will quote one example. The efforts of the Transport and General Workers' Union in relation to small road haulage companies in recent months, at least in the Midlands and parts of Yorkshire and East Anglia, have managed to obtain settlements far in excess of incomes policy. I make no judgment on whether those settlements are right or fair, but this is one concrete example of the policy leading to gross unfairness between one group of workers and another.
The policy is also unfair because it is hopelessly inadequate in the way that it deals with settlements which do come under general control, because the machinery for vetting and supervising is hopelessly inadequate. The number of settlements over the year is far too great for them all to be vetted equally thoroughly, so it is largely a question of luck whether one "gets the works" or not. Again, anyone active in a union or in management knows that this is true.
But, apart from whether the vetting machinery can cope with the vast number of settlements with which it should


cope, it also lacks the expertise in the assessment of productivity agreements. It is very difficult, as anyone with experience knows, to spot a fake from a true productivity agreement, even in one's own company, with goodwill and all the detailed knowledge aided by tools, such as cost measurement and the like. It becomes virtually impossible for. a small body of civil servant in Whitehall to judge the merits of a productivity deal in relation to hundreds of different industries and thousands of different companies.
Again, anyone who has worked in a company which has to submit one of these deals to the Department will know two things—the good faith, integrity and goodwill with which they attempt to deal with them, but also—I am sorry to say this—the inevitable underlying ignorance with which they are judged. This is not theoretical ignorance—I am not blaming those concerned—but the expertise cannot be there because it is so detailed and so specialised, not just in principle but in its application to each individual industry and factory.
On top of that is the inadequate capacity of the Prices and Incomes Board. I hasten to add that it is inadequate only in relation to the task which the Government are trying to put upon it. When an agreement has gone through the vetting machinery, nothing more can happen unless it is referred to the Board, but the number of cases with which it can deal in a year is relatively very small. Therefore, the D.E.P. must allow to go through many agreements, even if they see them to be failing to meet the criteria, simply because the Board could not physically cope with going into them in detail.
Again, I will give a concrete example. Last August, it was reported that the Midlands Brewers' Association's pay claim for 10,000 brewery workers was allowed to go through, even though the Department said that it was not justified—presumably because the P.I.B. was clogged up. I can think of no other reason. I am sure that that one example could be multiplied many times.
Another cause of unfairness is the lack of adequate machinery for checking on how approved productivity deals work out in practice. My hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) could

tell the House more about this than most hon. Members. Any of us who look through HANSARD daily know the many tens, perhaps hundreds by now, of Questions which he asks on this point and the futility of the Answers. The truth is that one can get away with murder providing one can present one's first case glibly enough to get by.
Yet another cause of injustice in the policy is the unfairness as between similar groups of workers. There are two well-known examples. The first is that of Scottish and English electricians, often having to work together on the same sites. The pay settlement for the Scottish electricians was frozen by the right hon. Lady. Thus, the Scottish electrician has had to work on the same site at a lower rate of pay than his English colleague.
Secondly, there was the case of the municipal busmen. Those who toed the Government line in the summer have had less than those who refused to toe the Government line, because those who refused and had their increase frozen for 12 months got the full back payment for 12 months just before Christmas. Those who were responsible suffered and those who dug their toes in gained. That is only one of the many examples, of how the strong get away with it under the policy while the weak suffer.
Let us look at the cases of the railway workers, the engineers, the tally clerks and the overseas telegraphists. The Government thought that the telegraphists were weak at first and only discovered later that they were strong. Wherever real strength is shown, the stringent testing—the Chancellor's own description—of achieved productivity which he promised in his Budget speech last year, goes out of the window. Compare these cases with the building workers and the municipal busmen, and one sees how the weaker get clobbered.
One of the avowed objectives of the policy was to help the lower-paid workers, to strengthen their position and to make life fairer for them. But no one yet, either the Government or the P.I.B., has decided who are lower-paid workers. The agricultural workers are a classic example of them, but the Government decided that they were weak enough to have their case referred to the Prices


and Incomes Board. We are glad about the way in which that case emerged. This great policy was designed to help the lower-paid workers, yet the Board had to say that the agricultural workers should really have their increase quashed, but that an exception might be made. The Government jumped at the chance and made an exception. They had to make an exception in the policy to help lower-paid workers.
What about others affected? What about equal pay for women, which we hear so much about at times from the right hon. Lady? They are lower-paid workers yet, last summer, she rejected an Amendment to the Prices and Incomes Act which would have exempted from the operation of the statutory incomes policy any voluntary collective agreement which might breach it in order to promote greater equality of pay between men and women. Now she has the Ford women once again on her plate or in her teacup, or wherever it is she has them. I wonder what she will do.
Let us look at workers in those companies where productivity is already very high. If it is already so high—and let us take an extreme case—that it cannot be made higher, these people have to suffer for their efficiency and for the efficiency of their managements by not qualifying for any increase. If one works for inefficient management in an inefficient way, almost the sky is the limit in extra productivity deals.
Then take the position of those—and there are many—who depend principally on locally fixed piece work rates for a substantial part of their earnings. As we have pointed out, and as the Board has pointed out, this policy does not bite in any effective way on them. Good luck to them, but it is bad luck on those who do not get much or any of their pay under such agreements.
There is the case, also, of the salary earners. The university teachers have just had their pay judged by the Board, which has said that comparability cannot be taken into account under the policy. Compare this with the doctors and dentists, whose recommended and accepted increase is based entirely on arguments of comparability. Where is the fairness or the justice in that?
I could go on with endless examples showing that the weak and the responsible tend to suffer and that the strong and the irresponsible tend to gain. All this does grave long-term damage to industrial relations, and that is the third limb of the Motion. The effect of the damage is obvious in the 1968 strike record. But it is not only in that record. Anyone, whether on the management or union side, who goes about the country and knows these things, realises that, apart from the strike record, industrial relations are tense where they used to be relaxed. Where there used to be good relations there are worsening relations.
I want to quote what the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) said as long ago as 1961 in relation to the Conservative Government's pay pause. He said:
What will all this achieve in the private sector? It will introduce friction between management and men where friction does not now exist. Even where industrial relations are good enough for management and workers to get on, because the Government have called upon management to act differently and management loyally does friction will be produced in industrial relations where hitherto there has been none."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July. 1961; Vol. 645, c. 620.]
If the right hon. Gentleman feared that in relation to the voluntary, mild attempts to influence incomes in 1961, how much more true are his views—and we know that they are true—when applied to trying to control incomes by law? So it is not only in the strike record, but in the general climate of industrial relations that the greatest and most long-term damage is taking place.
One of the worst of the effects is that it is clearly becoming more and more a paying proposition to wield the big stick. Look at the railways, the engineers and the overseas telegraphists. That last sorry business is a direct invitation to people to strike in future to get what they want. It is a direct example of how, if one cannot get it by a responsible approach, one should try direct action. Once that belief is more strongly established—and it was too prevalent before—it will be very difficult to get rid of it again. Under this policy, it too often happens that responsible collective bargaining does not pay.
That classic case under this policy was the case which dragged on throughout


last year, of the building workers. The House was denied a debate on that matter. If ever there was a case of union leaders and management trying to do the right thing, giving the Government a whole year's warning before they were to make their new agreement, this was it. The Government sat on it, did nothing for six months and when half the warning time had gone, referred it to the Prices and Incomes Board.
When that report was delayed, the building workers unions and employers had to make an interim agreement in a hurry, because the old agreement was running out in a few days, and there was no news from the Government or the P.I.B. They made an interim agreement, reported it to the Minister who allowed them to bring it into operation, and then had it quashed after it was in operation. I can imagine no better way of undermining responsible approaches to collective bargaining by union leaders and management than the conduct of incomes policy over that claim.
The attempt to control wages by law has, since 1966, progressively and seriously undermined the authority of responsible and official union leadership, while it has strengthened the influence of unofficial leaders.
It has gravely damaged the chances of achieving a more responsible and more constructive development of collective bargaining. All responsible opinion, including the Donovan Commission, stresses the urgency of doing the exact opposite. Even the Government pay lip service to this, but as so often, they say one thing and do another, or do one thing with one hand and another thing with the other, cancelling each action out. There is no doubt that both the major symptoms of trouble in industrial relations, inflationary wage increases and the dangerously rising trend in a number of strikes, are evidence of the increasing failure of collective bargaining, particularly at company and plant level.
We have either to give up free collective bargaining or set about in earnest trying to strengthen it and that is why we have kept on saying that the choice before the Government and the country is either to go on to more compulsion on a permanent basis, or to go back to freedom within a framework of reasonable discipline and order. [Interruption.] It is

impossible to have freedom, except within a reasonable framework of order. That is exactly what the trade unions and their members have been finding out to their cost. It is what their colleagues in other countries found out long ago. If we go into factories, take opinion polls or make any test, we find that this is what the rank and file workers know, and their hon. Friends opposite have not yet woken up to this.
What is required from the Government, above all, in legislative action is the introduction of a comprehensive new industrial relations Bill, and the repeal of the statutory incomes policy. Both are needed, together and quickly. The Government are now taking halting steps towards the first, but they are still making no commitment regarding the second Once more it is too little too late, and the worst of both worlds. Instead of policies which are mutually reinforcing, we are getting policies pulling in opposite directions. The incomes policy left hand of the right hon. Lady commits arson and fans the flames already alive. Her industrial relations right hand plays at being a fire brigade, and the one hand makes unnecessary work for the other.
I am convinced that the terms of our Motion are proved to the hilt by the facts and the knowledge of people throughout the country. Legal compulsion has failed. It has caused frequent injustices, and it does great damage to industrial relations. Hon. Gentleman opposite know that as well as anyone. I am sure that on a free vote this Motion would be passed overwhelmingly by the House.
Of course, we would not, did not, expect a free vote. But the Government appear determined not to allow a vote at all on the main issue. What an incredible display of confidence they have in the main plank of their policy! Can they no longer depend on a majority, even with a three-line Whip? I could understand it if vanity made it impossible for them to accept the opening part of our Motion, I could even understand it, if for the same reason, they found it impossible to refuse a commitment to repeal forthwith. But surely, at this stage, we could have had an Amendment from the Government which had some bearing on their intention, either to keep or remove the statutory incomes policy. No. They have dodged the issue altogether, and tabled


a fatuous Amendment which gives the House no opportunity to express any view about continuing or ending statutory powers in the short or long run. Even though the Government have refused to face a commitment by way of a Motion, they must give the House today a firm statement about their future policy. What do they intend to do about the future?
Meanwhile, they can play what word games they like on the Order Paper. We know that our Motion expresses the true feelings of the House and of the vast majority of the people in the country. If we are partisans we are proud of it, because we know that the vast majority of people are partisans, too. We also know that the direction pointed by this Motion is the only direction of hope for the future prosperity for the country.

4.37 p.m.

The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mrs. Barbara Castle): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'notes that Her Majesty's Opposition is more concerned with partisan criticism of Her Majesty's Government's productivity, prices and incomes policy than with the promotion of a constructive and socially just economic strategy'.
This is an extremely fascinating Motion that we are debating. I suspected that the most interesting part of the Opposition's attack upon the Government will lie in its wording. After the lugubrious category of destructive detail that we have had from the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), and the total lack of a positive philosophy or economic policy, I doubt very much whether the right hon. Gentleman was the author of the Motion. He is an earnest and honest and painstaking man. His heart obviously was not in it. It is not in his character to be so devious.
I suspect that this Motion is the brainchild of that consummate fisher of Parliamentary men, the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), who, in plotting it has been in no way inhibited by the fact that its purpose is to veil the unalluring nakedness of Conservative economic policy. The right hon. Member for Enfield, West, knows his politics. This is stark vote-catching and he hopes

that it will reap him a dividend this afternoon.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Lady. Perhaps she will take it from me, as a personal assurance, that I did not draft the Motion, but that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) did.

Mrs. Castle: I accept the right hon. Gentleman's disclaimer of the honour I was heaping upon him. Clearly, the right hon. Member for Mitcham must have been sitting at his feet.
The second interesting thing about the Motion is the signatories to it. Any Motion on prices and incomes policy which unites the right hon. Member for Enfield, West—who, a few days ago, told the National Federation of Building Trade Employers:
I cannot forecast a happy or long life for the Prices and Incomes Board under a Conservative Administration"—
with the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling)—who is on record as a supporter of a prices and incomes policy—simply has to be negative.
What about the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath)? He delivered himself of a speech to the Young Conservatives' national conference the other day in which he managed, at one and the same time, to condemn what he called the "Socialist misery-go-round", and the present level of public expenditure and the Government's withdrawal from east of Suez. Therefore, it is not surprising that he is condeming the Government's failure to create misery among wage-earners; it is merely indecent.
Incidentally, it is nicely ironic that the right hon. Member for Enfield, West should have chosen an audience of building trades employers in which to denounce the prices and incomes policy, because he is on a winner both ways. He can appear as the champion of the poor oppressed building worker, robbed of his penny by this cruel Government, while assuring the building trades employers that under the Conservatives they would never more have to suffer the inquisition of the Prices and Incomes Board which, in its Report on the pay claim, trounced them for the poor quality of their management, the excessive use of overtime due to poor site organization,


and their failure to promote incentive bonus schemes effectively linked to increased productivity.
Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman that what is of far more concern to building workers' unions than the penny an hour is chaotic conditions of organisation and of wages structures in this industry as revealed by the Phelps Brown Report and the Reports of the Prices and Incomes Board. What the building workers' unions want is a chance to work out proper productivity schemes to replace the present farcical system of so-called incentive bonus schemes, which may cover only two-fifths of the workers in the industry, with authentic bonus schemes genuinely related to output. They want decent working conditions on the site, stronger trade union organisation, greater continuity of employment and a curb on the abuses of labour-only sub-contracting, which was a growing menace to trade union organisation and the national Exchequer long before the Selective Employment Tax appeared on the scene.
It is these improvements which the work of the Prices and Incomes Board holds out to them. It is these improvements which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works and I have been discussing with them only in the last few days, pledging the Government's support in realising them and thus keeping my promise that once the argument about the interim settlement was out of the way we could work out together ways of giving building workers the chance of organised advancement for which they looked in vain under the Conservatives.
My right hon. Friend and I have already set up a working party to pave the way for policy decisions on legislation. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite should not show their total frivolity. When did they even sit down and study the problem of labour-only sub-contracting in this industry, let alone start preparing the legislation to solve the problem and deal with the self-employment in the industry? It is hoped that the unions will be joining in these discussions as from next week, followed soon, I hope, by the employers. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works is also reviewing his own contract procedures with a view to strengthening

the provisions governing the use of labour-only sub-contracting on contracts let by his Department, thus taking the Government action which the Prices and Incomes Board Report urged.
The building workers' claim, far from being a matter on which to accuse the Government, is a good starting point from which to discuss the purpose of a productivity, prices and incomes policy. What is the purpose which the Motion says the policy has failed to achieve? I would not expect Conservatives to grasp it; it is far too civilised a concept for them to understand. The purpose is not, as the Opposition argue outside the House, to make workers shoulder the whole burden of national economic recovery by holding down wages but letting prices and all other incomes rise. If that had been the purpose, we would indeed have failed. Is it this failure which we are asked to condemn by our vote tonight? If so, I plead guilty to it.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is there any significance in the fact that the Minister of Public Building and Works is not present to support the right hon. Lady in her optimistic statements?

Mrs. Castle: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. There is no significance at all. My right hon. Friend and I are working jointly and enthusiastically on improving conditions in the building industry.
Hon. Members opposite, and particularly right hon. Members, are fond of talking with two voices. They accuse us in the country, but in the House their argument is totally different. The right hon. Member for Bexley, in the debate on the economic situation on 25th November, denounced us for a very different failure. Then he said:
Earnings are up by 8 per cent. and prices by 6 per cent. This is another condemnation of the failure of the Government's prices and incomes policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th November, 1968; Vol. 774, c. 36.]
I hope that my hon. Friends have noted that. It is a very different failure from that for which the Opposition are trouncing us in the country, where they have actively encouraged the vast majority of people to believe that prices have risen and that wages have been kept down.

Sir Cyril Osborne: Would the right hon. Lady care to ask her married women supporters whether prices have increased more than the wages of their husbands?

Mrs. Castle: The hon. Gentleman must not publicly contradict the leader of his party who, as I have just shown, accused us of letting wages rise far higher than prices. That accusation has been repeated by the right hon. Member for Mitcham today, who said that between October, 1967, and October, 1968, wage rates rose by 6·9 per cent. for all industries and services and by 8·8 per cent. in manufacturing—the biggest increase for 12 years. My first reaction is, some misery-go-round!
The figures that he has quoted are of little value unless they are analysed in terms of the criteria, the ceiling and the purposes of the current phase of the productivity, prices and incomes policy. It is to the purpose of that policy and how we have succeeeded in achieving that purpose that I want to turn.
The purpose of the policy is a simple and essential one. It is to keep increases in money incomes as closely as possible in line with increases in national output, and thus to act directly on industrial costs in order to maintain our international competitiveness. Do the Opposition agree with that, or are they merely saying that we have not succeeded? If we have not succeeded, incidentally, they can hardly blame us, since they have done everything possible during the last few months to wreck the policy.
Let me give the right hon. Gentleman and the House figures that are more relevant, because they cover the period of the current policy. From March 1968, when the new phase of the policy was introduced, to December 1968, hourly wage rates rose by 4·2 per cent., earnings by 5·8 per cent. and prices by 4·7 per cent. [An HON. MEMBER: "By how much did dividends rise?"] Dividends rose by 3·2 per cent.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, we had better face facts.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Will my right hon. Friend now go on to tell us by how much profits rose during this period?

Mrs. Castle: We are talking about incomes, not capital. What matters is not

profitability, but how the profits are distributed. This is what this policy is concerned with. I will return in detail to the policy for dividends.

Mr. John Biffen: Mr. John Biffen (Oswestry) rose—

Mrs. Castle: I am sorry, I have accepted already half a dozen interventions.
Why have wage rates risen above the ceiling of 3½ per cent.? Partly because of the engineering settlement, which produced a sharp rise in the index because of the large increase in minimum earning levels last December, an increase incidentally, which affected the figure quoted by the right hon. Gentleman.
There are two points to note about this settlement. First, the effect on the wage rate index is misleading because the vast majority of engineering workers are already earning above the minimum. Secondly, the settlement is for the first time linked to productivity conditions of inestimable benefit to the industry, as the employers will be the first to admit because they negotiated it.
If we leave out engineering, we find that between March and December, 1968 the weighted average size of settlement on a per annum basis was 3·7 per cent. in the private sector and 3·9 per cent. in the public sector. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that this is too high? Does he think we could have achieved it without the policy? He says that he objects to our type of control.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite tried to control incomes when they were in power and the right hon. Gentleman has said that they will try to influence them again. To hear them talk, one would never believe that they operated the pay pause in 1961–63. Their way of doing it was to hold down the wages of public employees while just hoping that wages in private industry would follow suit. They are still hankering after it.
Only last March, the Leader of the Opposition in the Budget debate said this:
Above all, the Government have the responsibility to ensure that the vast public sector which is now under their control does not grant wages which are more than productivity will justify."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th March, 1968; Vol. 761, c. 308.]


The right hon. Gentleman was echoed by the right hon. Member for Enfield, West in the same debate. He demanded:
'The Government should give a lead. They should be seen to be absolutely firm in their own negotiations. A stand by them…would do more good than any amount of exhortation' ".—[OFICIAL REPORT, 20th March. 1968; Vol. 761, c. 440.]
Some policy, to get tough with nurses, policemen, teachers, industrial and non-industrial civil servants generally, regardless of what is happening to other wages and salaries! And they dare to talk about our policy being unjust in its application. The aim of our policy is to treat the private and public sectors equally, and the figures which I have quoted show that we have achieved broad success.
As far as wage rates are concerned—

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that after the building trade settlement those in private industry working on large contracts recouped their loss of Id. the following morning by various productivity agreements, and so on, but those who were working in the National Health Service, in local government maintenance and in the lower-paid sections of the building industry actually lost the Id. and it meant a great deal to these workers?

Mrs. Castle: In so far as the Id. was recouped by genuine productivity agreements, I would be the first to welcome it. If my hon. Friend had been listening to the first part of my speech he would have heard me say that what matters to building workers and what they are asking for—and the other day I met all their unions—is the opportunity for genuine productivity agreements to be applied throughout the industry generally. It is this to which we are now giving attention and which was overlooked for all those years under the Conservatives.
So far as wage rates are concerned, it is clear that they are broadly in line with the policy—

Mr. Biffen: Mr. Biffen rose—

Mrs. Castle: I am sorry, I have given way equally to both sides, and I am not giving way again.

Mr. Biffen: If you do not give way you are running away.

Mrs. Castle: Very well; the hon. Gentleman can have that on record in HANSARD.
Prices also are in line with the policy. I hope that there is one accusation that Her Majesty's Opposition will now have the grace to retract; the accusation made by hon. Gentlemen opposite time and again in the Standing Committee on the Prices and Incomes Bill when they claimed that the Government's aim was to push up prices as much as possible. They jeered when I said that we would vigorously resist unjustifiable price increases. The price index proves that we have kept our promise and have done so successfully.
Our aim has been to contain price increases within the limits dictated by devaluation and the Budget, and we have achieved it as a result of the machinery of the present policy. If hon. Members doubt that, they should study the experience of other countries who devalued at the same time.
What, then, about earnings, which is the figure that hon. Gentlemen opposite prefer to quote? The increase between last March and December was, as I have said, 5·8 per cent. Again, are hon. Gentlemen opposite saying that it was too high? If so, how would they have brought it down?
What we are saying is that we have a simple test: has an increase of this size been earned? Has the country earned it by an improvement in our national economic position? Have the individuals concerned earned it by increased productivity? In so far as it has not been earned, the Government are bound to take corrective measures by other means.
The answer to these questions is that we have partly earned it by increased output, which has been rising rapidly, increased exports, which are at an all-time high and still, I am glad to say, on a rising trend, and by increased productivity, which has been one of the marked successes of the policy: even the T.U.C. admits as much. [Interruption.] It has been accused of being critical. I suggest that if hon. Gentlemen read the Economic Review they will see that the T.U.C. admits that the policy has had a direct stimulus on productivity.
Output per head has been rising at a rate of nearly 7 per cent. in the production industries over the last full year, and


one of the contributory factors indisputably is the emphasis now being laid on productivity bargaining under the policy, as those firms and unions which increasingly are turning to our Manpower and Productivity Service for help would be the first to testify. We have always stressed the positive productivity element in the policy, and the results are proving that this was not just an empty phrase.
It is true that we did not earn all this increase, which is one of the reasons why the Government have been compelled to take measures of restraint on consumption. But how much more stringent would those measures have had to be if we had not had a productivity, prices and incomes policy. Indeed, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have admitted as much. In his speech last March, the Leader of the Opposition attacked the Chancellor for not stamping down earlier on the spending spree. Presumably, he would have had a tough Budget even earlier; but it would not have been as socially equitable as the Chancellor's. According to Mr. David Wood, in The Times the other day, the next Tory Government will shift taxation from earnings to spending. That is hardly a charter for the lower paid.
It was soon clear whose spending the right hon. Gentleman was most eager to cut—the Government's. He made it quite clear how he would do it. He would do it not by cutting defence expenditure, but by cutting agricultural and housing subsidies; in other words, by forcing up the price of food and rents for millions of workers whose interests they have been hypocritically peddling this afternoon. He added arrogantly that, if people on low incomes were particularly affected by any increase in the price of food, they can be helped through the social services. If the right hon. Gentlemen who drew up the Motion were honest, they would have added the following words to it:
… and calls on the Government drastically to reduce wage earners' standard of living by reducing public expenditure.
We all know why they left out these words, but that is their alternative policy.
What do the right hon. Gentleman's detailed complaints about our policy amount to? The Motion says and the

right hon. Gentleman says that the prices and incomes policy is
causing grave damage to industrial relations.
He made some play with the Post Office settlement. Let me say at once that I accept my share of responsibility for the situation which developed over that claim, and I will not pretend that it was particularly well handled at the beginning by the Government. But I do not apologise for the fact that we insisted on relating the claim to the criteria of our policy, especially on the productivity side. Is not that exactly what the Leader of the Opposition asked us to do? He called upon the Government to see that the public sector
… does not grant wages more than productivity will justify".
It was because we were able to satisfy ourselves on this point that we were able to reach a settlement.
As for the Motion's general reference to "grave damage to industrial relations", this is one of those unsubstantiated assertions of which the Opposition are so fond. Of course, industrial relations have been strained often over a wage claim. It has been a common occurrence throughout the whole history of collective bargaining. Are the Opposition saying that relations should never be strained over wages? If so, we might as well abandon the word "bargaining".
The right hon. Gentleman just hinted at the figure in respect of the increase in strikes last year due to the policy. He did not quote it, but I will. Last year, 4½ million working days were lost through strikes. That is the highest figure since 1962. But he knows—and that is why he did not quote it—that the figure includes H million days lost as a result of the one-day engineering strike last March. It was part of their normal negotiating strategy—[Interruption] If the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite like, I will quote a year when the number of days lost reached 8 million because of engineering strikes when they were in office.
If we leave the one-day engineering strike out, the figure is roughly comparable with 1965, and it could not hope to compete with the high levels achieved under right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, notably the 5¼ million days lost


in 1959. The right hon. Gentleman's argument is nonsense. We all know that Canada and the United States have been losing roughly six times as many working days through strikes each year as Britain, and they have no statutory prices and incomes policy.
The right hon. Gentleman's second complaint is that the policy is frequently unjust in its application. He contrasted the treatment of doctors and dentists by Kindersley with the treatment of university teachers in the Report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes. We recognise that there have been differing interpretations of the criteria by the various public bodies responsible for advising us an salaries in the public sector, and this is obviously a factor that we shall have to take into account in considering any future development of the policy.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is the last person to say that we should have brushed aside the Report of the Kindersley Review Body, set up in 1962 by his own Government, especially when it had taken the prices and incomes policy fully into account. Equally, I am sure that he would welcome the way in which, in its Report on the pay of university teachers, the National Board for Prices and Incomes draws attention to the difficulties caused by loose forms of comparability as the sole justification for increases in pay. I repeat, it is the Leader of the Opposition who has said that the Government should give a lead in the public sector in relating pay to productivity. Indeed, it was his Government which referred the pay of university staff to the National Incomes Commission in 1963. But it is true that, as a result, we have been left with some anomalies between the treatment of different groups in the public sector, and the issues involved are now under review by the Government. They are complex ones, and of course, we should have full consultation with all those concerned beforehand if any change were contemplated.
It is essential that salaries, as well as wages, should be brought within the disciplines of the prices and incomes policy. That is why we have made a number of professional salary references to the National Board for Prices and Incomes and have currently referred not only top

salaries in the private sector and nationalised industries but the salaries of executives in the middle range of management. Before we assume that salary increases have got wildly out of line, I suggest that we wait for the evidence of these reports.
The results of my Department's survey of salary earnings last October are not yet available, but a report by the Corn-market Careers Centre calculates that the median salaries of certain professional groups in 1968 increased by an average of 4·7 per cent., which is far less than the increase in hourly wages.
My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) is quite right to ask what has happened to dividends. I am glad to give him with exactitude the latest figures available, which are those to the end of September, 1968—

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Listen, Mikardo.

Mrs. Castle: They show that the real increase in dividends compared with the previous year was less than 3·2 per cent.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: That is it, Mikardo.

Mrs. Castle: The figure was 3·2 per cent., but, in view of the increase in capital, the real figure works out at less than 3·2 per cent.

Mr. R. T. Paget: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mrs. Castle: I refused to give way to the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), and it would be very unfair to him if I gave way to my hon. and learned Friend. I would not like to be thought unfair, so I will give way to my hon. and learned Friend, and, after that, I shall have to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Paget: Does my right hon. Friend not appreciate that the people with real money have not been living on income for years? They have been living on capital gains, which are infinitely easier to get than dividends and bear much less tax.

Mrs. Castle: Of course I appreciate that this is not the whole picture, but neither is the prices and incomes policy the whole of the picture. We have never claimed that it was. We have never claimed that it is the sole, nor even the major, element in an overall economic


and fiscal strategy. This has never been the Government's case. The Government's case has been that we were taking measures, through this policy, to deal with wage and salary incomes, dividends, prices and rents, and that the other measures are appropriate, as the T.U.C. Economic Review points out, for achieving the Government's aim of social equity. This is not what we are claiming for the policy and it is not a point that falls to me to answer this afternoon.
But on one thing I am sure we would all agree: that is, that the agricultural workers have not been unfairly treated under the policy. The right hon. Gentleman scoffed at us for having referred their claim to the Prices and Incomes Board at all. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot complain at one moment that the policy is inconsistent and the next object to its comprehensiveness. The simple fact is that we asked the Board to indicate how this claim ranked in the light of the criteria of the policy, both on grounds of productivity and of low pay. For reasons of which my hon. Friends will be aware, the Board said that this was an exceptional case and that it had been treating it exceptionally. I should think that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen would be welcoming this flexibility, not criticising it.

Mr. R. Carr: Could the right hon. Lady explain why, if in order to get this comprehension it was right to refer the agricultural workers' claim, it was not also right and necessary to refer the tally clerks' claim?

Mrs. Castle: The reason why the tally clerks' claim was not referred was because we did not wish to hold up the encouraging progress towards a comprehensive and radical productivity deal for the docks with which we are pressing ahead with all possible speed.
The moral of these cases is that, if an incomes policy is to continue, we must progressively refine and improve the criteria. It is no part of my argument to claim that the Government have found the final solution to the complex problems of securing a more equitable and efficient system for distributing rewards. But what I do claim is that we have forced every one of us to face up to the moral and economic issues involved.
As the T.U.C. says in its current Economic Review:
One useful by-product of the incomes policy is that it has at least directed more attention to this problem …
of the low paid. It also admits that, while Congress had continued to assert the need for action to improve the relative position of low-paid workers,
… it is doubtful whether collective bargaining alone is likely to achieve this in the short run.
I doubt whether it will achieve it alone in the long run either, because we all know that one of the main aims of collective bargaining is to maintain existing differentials as sacrosanct.
This is a challenging problem for all of us, and I hope that in our forthcoming discussions on what should follow the current legislation, when it expires at the end of this year, we will face up to it honestly and realistically with the help of the information that the Government have collected through their sample survey on the distribution of incomes within industries and on the causes of low pay and their study of the cost and implications of a minimum earnings guarantee. The report of this study will be published shortly.
The implications of such a guarantee would be far reaching, and I ask the House to consider the report very seriously when it is published. Here again, I believe that they will show that one could not hope to improve the relative position of the low-paid except in the context of some incomes policy.
Whether, in its next phase after 1969, it should be a statutory policy is something that we shall be discussing during the next few months. But I say to my hon. Friends that it will not be simple or easy to find a more comfortable, more efficient or more equitable way of achieving our social and economic aims. It is very easy to criticise, as we heard from the right hon. Gentleman's speech this afternoon, but to construct something positive is very different. Certainly hon. Gentlemen opposite, for all the deceptive wording of their Motion, do not offer any alternative that we could accept. Of course they do not support a productivity, prices and incomes policy, statutory or otherwise. The only policy that they ever had was an incomes policy pure and simple.
For all the criticisms that have been, and will be, levelled against the Government this afternoon, let us remember that 1968 was an encouraging year in this important respect. We enjoyed an upsurge in growth—4 per cent.—associated with an improvement in the balance of payments—unlike our unhappy experience in the past when a high rate of growth has almost automatically meant that the balance of payments has deteriorated—and our standard of living has risen at the same time.
No one on this side of the House would want to endanger that triple advance, still far too precarious for us to relax. Because I believe that the productivity, prices and incomes policy, for all its imperfections, has made a modest but vital contribution to our progress in the past year, I ask the House to reject the Motion.

5.17 p.m.

Mr. Peter Emery: I have seldom heard, certainly at the start of a speech, a weaker or a greater joke perpetrated on the House than the approach made by the right hon. Lady. To dismiss the Motion, as she did at the start of her speech, showed no understanding of the importance which so many people place upon the debate today
I should like to take the right hon. Lady to the start of this debate. On Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill the right hon. Lady said:
The starting point must be devaluation. This was designed to enable us to turn our backs on deflationary policies…We are no longer asking the people to hold down wage increases as part of an overall reduction in the level of economic activity."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st May, 1968; Vol. 765, c. 301.]
I wonder whether the Under Secretary of State, in winding up the debate this evening, will tell us whether he is in agreement today with those statements which were made by the right hon. Lady when the prices and incomes legislation was introduced.
Have the Government turned their back on a deflationary policy? Of course not. The whole approach since May, 1968, has had to be greater and greater deflation. Indeed, the demand that has been made by the right hon. Lady to ensure a limitation in wages by her controls has reduced, without any doubt, the overall increase in the level of economic expansion.
Maladministration has become synonymous with Labour Government, and there is no Minister of which this is more true than the First Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity. What a misnomer it was when she chose "Employment and Productivity" as the new title for the old respected and respectable Ministry of Labour. Surely it would be more true today to take a leaf from the title of the right hon. Lady's White Paper on trade unions, and rename the Department, "Department of Strife and Unemployment"?
That is the situation which exists at the moment. The number of days lost because of strikes in industry is of major concern, especially when one compares our record with that of other nations in Europe. Ours is one of which no-one can be proud, and the percentage of that figure which is due to unofficial stoppages makes the situation even worse.
When one comes to the level of unemployment when considering the overall position of the right hon. Lady's policy, one finds that it has been essential to have a high level of unemployment to ensure that the Government would be able to press forward with their policy. The figure of 500,000 unemployed this year has lasted for a longer time than ever before in modern times, and it must be remembered, of course, that this figure is somewhat misleading because it is lower than the comparative figures which were used prior to 1964. I say that because what most people do not realise is that the unemployment figures today do not include school leavers, and the figures for Northern Ireland have been excluded from the overall totals.
The figures reveal that the policy for prices and incomes has, in many instances, been a policy of vacillation. The right hon. Lady has been willing to get tough with the moderates, with the reasonable people, with those who are unlikely to strike, and with those whose strike action would not hurt the economy, but she ensures that the Government give way to anybody who stands up to them.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is not the dilemma in which we find ourselves due to the fact that the right hon. Lady's actions in the past have been wrong, while the words in the latter part of her speech could not have been more right? Words and actions conflict.

Mr. Emery: I was paying pretty close attention to many of the right hon. Lady's words during the whole of her speech. I did not find in them an analysis of our real problem, or a solution to it. What the right hon. Lady says and then does bears no relation to what we see happening in the country.
When it comes to dealing with the tally clerks, with railway workers, and with post office workers, where there is considerable strength, the Government have been willing to give way. If the Government allow the incomes policy to be breached by workers for whom they are almost entirely responsible, how can, and why should, they expect industry to take their policy more seriously than they are doing themselves? Part of the right hon. Lady's speech was a condemnation of the Conservative Government who, she said, when holding to the pay pause were more stringent than the rest of industry. If the Government are to govern, they must set the example, and even with the right hon. Lady's own figures of adjusted increases one finds figures of 3·7 per cent. and 3·9 per cent., one in the private sector, and the other in the public sector. This only goes to point the moral that the Government expect industry to be tougher and more stringent with their workers than the Government are willing to be with those for whom they themselves are directly responsible.
The right hon. Lady's motto might well be, "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day". That is what she has encouraged. Where she has been able to, she has forced her policy through, but where somebody has been prepared to stand up and fight, however much giving way may have meant breaching her policy, she has given way.
The harm of statutory wage control can be summed up in four ways. First, nobody is in favour of it, not even the Prime Minister, and we do not have to go back over old quotations to discover that. Secondly, the C.B.I, and the T.U.C. believe that it is a major interference in industry. Thirdly, more often than not ways are found to get round it to ensure that the 3½ per cent. norm is exceeded. This is a major weakness of the policy. It is this which, to a greater extent than anything else, underlines the rightness of the Motion. The norm has been breached

on an innumerable number of occasions. Fourthly, and perhaps most damaging of all, and something which has been ignored, is that the Government's policy is precipitating the largest wage bomb of pent-up, unsatisfied and unsatiated wage claims which awaits only the removal of statutory wage control to burst forth in cyclonic proportions to swamp industry. It will bring the largest increase in labour costs that this country has ever known. This is a desperate position, and one to which the right hon. Lady has shown no sign of finding a solution.
The Labour Party has only one bankrupt solution to deal with the problem, yet another, the fourth, round of prices and incomes legislation, and with all this the fact that wages went up faster during the 12 months from October, 1967, to October, 1968, than ever before in the previous 12 years. How then can the Government suggest that it would be right to continue this kind of legislation?
The right hon. Lady said that the difficulty about replacing the present statutory incomes policy was that "it would be difficult to find one more comfortable, more efficient, and more equitable". What a lot of nonsense that is, and it is because of the difficulties into which the Labour Party has got itself that I predict that it will be necessary to prolong the statutory wages control beyond the end of the year.
This control is encouraging a lack of discipline within the trade union movement. We are seeing the unofficial strike grow, and the "Dash you, Jack. I'm ail right" element play a major part in our troubles. Strangely the Left-wing Amendment. We are seeing the unofficial strike gest an immediate attempt to return to free market conditions. This is a strange view coming from hon. Gentlemen opposite, rather like anarchists at the London School of Economics petitioning for more gates to be erected before they will agree to co-operate.
One factor has been neglected entirely The upper limit of 3½ per cent. has been set, but nearly every settlement which has not been referred to the Board or to the right hon. Lady has been based on a minimum of that figure. In other words, the norm has been accepted as the bottom level for wage increases, and many ways


have been found to get round it, by backdating, by pseudo productivity agreements, and so on. The hon. Lady has claimed with much vigour that she wants to see justifiable productivity arrangements brought in. But one of the major problems of any settlement all of us must realise is that a productivity bargain agreement should not receive payment until it has actually started to work. One of the difficulties is that settlements have been made with productivity bargains included, but the bargains have been very limited during the next 12 months. The wages have been paid, but the return to the industrialist or the Government in increased productivity has been negligible.
I turn now to the limitation on prices. The right hon. Lady seemed proud of her achievement, and boasted of it. But, from October, 1964, to December, 1968, there was a 19-plus percentage increase in the index of retail prices. Food prices rose by over 16 per cent. If an average family—and this was the yardstick taken—was spending £19 10s. a week in 1964, it would need to spend today £23 4s., an extra £3 14s., to buy the same amount. When she refers to the work of the nationalised industries, it is as well to point out that their prices have risen by over 25 per cent. since 1964. Is she proud of that?
The whole of her speech was an example of what is so often wrong with the Government. The Prime Minister and his Ministers have personally, by their continued statements guised to mislead the British people, done much to undermine public confidence in Parliament and politicians to a point lower than at any time since the days of Machiavelli.
Let us consider the record. On 30th October, just before the Bassetlaw by-election, the right hon. Lady said that no economic freeze was on the way. A few days later, when hire-purchase restrictions were brought to the same crisis level as in 1966, she dismissed that with the phrase "Just a touch on the tiller". But less than three weeks later, the November emergency Budget was brought in, bringing an extra £250 million of taxation, with 5d. on petrol and cigarettes, a 10 per cent. increase in Purchase Tax by means of the regulator—a form of taxation which was roundly condemned by hon. Members opposite when

a Conservative Government introduced it—a squeeze on bank lending and an import deposits scheme, all at a moment's notice. Was this just "a touch on the tiller "? The right hon. Lady must be either criminally out of touch or culpabably incompetent in understanding how the economy should be managed.

Mr. Kenneth Lomas: I cannot understand this single, double or triple somersault which the Opposition seem to be performing. Are they saying that it is wrong that wages should rise and the cost of living should be controlled or that, if they were in power, they would reduce wage levels and allow prices to rise? Is it not a fact that, under this Government, although there is a norm under the prices and incomes policy, which I support, there are exceptions to the 3½ per cent. which allow for the rise in wages and therefore for the rise in the standard of living of the great majority of people?

Mr. Emery: That raises about five other points; let me deal with the two main ones. First, we condemn the Government for their set policy, which they have propounded in this House and the country because it has failed absolutely—

Mr. Lomas: Where?

Mr. Emery: The hon. Gentleman should look at some of his supporters behind him—

Mr. Lomas: Where has it failed?

Mr. Emery: If the hon. Gentleman needs to be lectured on every single position—

Mr. Lomas: Where?

Mr. Emery: Let us say, the tally clerks. Was it right that their claim should be allowed when the municipal busmen were nearly double-crossed over their claim? Was it right that the Post Office and railway workers should have received the special treatment which university lecturers were refused? Let us just take those illustrations—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman does not like my answers, he must just accept them and try to catch Mr. Speaker's eye himself later.
The whole of the Government's policy is bound to fail. Once they set forward


on using the compulsory power of this House to control wage negotiations, they are bound to the slippery slope of failure, unless they use more and more compulsion. This is what we condemn and it is for these reasons that the Conservative Motion should be supported.

5.37 p.m.

Mr. Roy Hughes: The hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) pursued his case in his normal highly rhetorical fashion. I do not intend to run away from him, but I do not need to pursue him down the corridors of what he termed "the Department of Strife and Unemployment". On the surface, at least, there is much in the Motion with which I can agree but I am a little nauseated with the hypocrisy of leaders of the Opposition in putting it down. One can see their reasons in the Motion and they were made clear by the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr).
The Motion says
… the attempt to control incomes…has failed in its purpose …
In other words, wages have not been held down rigidly enough. Their policy, of course, would rely on market forces, buttressed by the policy outlined in their document "A Fair Deal at Work", which would bind the trade unions to a rigid code of law.
For workpeople in the factories, the docks, the mines and the workshops to accept the Tory Party's policy in place of the Government's policy is merely a case of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

Mr. John Page: Just for clarification, I believe that my right hon. Friend's Motion, when it says that the law has failed in its purpose, means that it has failed in the purpose which the right hon. Lady and the hon. Gentleman's friends had in mind, and not on the basis of what we on this side believe.

Mr. Hughes: My right hon. Friend can answer that for herself.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite are worried lest the Government's incomes policy has what one might term a quiet burial. They intend to stir things up to the very end. They know that the Labour movement is decidedly split over this policy. Trade

unionists are worried about their cherished right of free bargaining, something for which they fought over the years and, to a large extent, won.
It is noticeable that in Fascist countries like Franco's Spain and pre-war Hitlerite Germany one of the first acts was to attack the freedom of the trade union movement. I am not so much against an incomes policy: I have been opposed to the fact that the Government's incomes policy has tended to be operated in a vacuum.
An incomes policy is part of what one might call a Socialist conception of society, but the Government have failed in that they have not had the courage to introduce the accompanying Socialist props like realistic price control, selective economic controls, policies designed to narrow and not widen the gap between the rich and the poor, a major expansion of public ownership, more cuts in defence expenditure and cuts in the costly featherbedding of B.A.O.R.
The Government's incomes policy has been the cornerstone of their economic policy, but it has been operated without these essential props and therefore, far from stumbling into Socialism—a phrase once used by an articulate member of the Government to describe the policy—the Labour Party and the Government have been stumbling to disaster. We have lost control of almost every major local authority and many safe Labour Parliamentary seats into the bargain. As my union, the Transport and General Workers' Union, has repeatedly maintained, the Government should not have gone into this field and, having gone in, they should get out of it now. Considering the essentially capitalist nature of our society, this analysis of the situation is probably justified.

Mr. Lomas: How can my hon. Friend argue on the one hand that we have done so much wrong and, on the other, accept that wages have risen more than the cost of living and that the Government have kept prices down more than they have wages, and in so doing have recognised that trade unions not only have rights but responsibilities? Is my hon. Friend aware that there are 8 million pensioners in Britain who must be considered along with everybody else?

Mr. Hughes: If my hon. Friend will be patient, I will reply to those very points.
The accent all along should have been on productivity. I welcome the Government's conversion in the last year or so to this point of view. The very change in the name of the Department to include the words "employment" and "productivity" is an indication of the changed feeling in the Government. The whole conception of productivity being the answer was not so much accepted by the Government 18 months or two years ago, and I have never believed that wages are a basic cause of our economic ills. Indeed, it could be said that low wages have contributed to many of our economic difficulties because they have given companies no incentive to modernise their equipment and thereby increase productivity. Wages in countries which are our principal competitors have been rising faster than wages in Britain, yet the Government, despite all these obvious factors, have still insisted on their incomes policy being the cornerstone of their economic policy.
Has this policy been justified? The answer was provided in July of last year with the publication of the Third General Report of the Prices and Incomes Board. It said that the average annual increase in earnings in recent years had been just under 1 per cent. less than it otherwise would have been. Could any other observation on this policy be more revealing? If all the Ministerial effort, Parliamentary time and trade union activity which have gone into imposing or resisting the policy could instead have gone into increased productivity, does anyone seriously doubt that the productivity so increased would have been greater than just under 1 per cent.?
One need only think of all the strikes that have taken place because of the policy, not least the disastrous seamen's strike. Consider the morale of many good Labour supporters in the factories and workshops. Consider the parsimonious treatment of the busmen's £, which was freely negotiated, the builders' penny, and the ineptitude in dealing with the Post Office telegraphists. There are many other examples one could cite.
I hope that the incomes policy will be buried at the end of its term towards the

end of the year and that "R.I.P." will be written above it. Our Amendment—it is worth noting that it represents the decision of the Labour Party Conference last October and a Motion originally placed on the Agenda of that Conference by my union, the T. & G. W.U.—states:
recognising the extent to which legislation restricting wage and salary movements has hindered both legitimate trade union activity and economic expansion, calls for the repeal of this legislation, and also rejects any further legislation the aim of which would be to curtail basic trade union rights …
The Under-Secretary does not believe that we should take very much note of annual conference decisions. I, on the other hand, believe that the sooner we get back to the fundamentals of the Labour Movement the better. Some Members of the Government would be well advised to study past conference resolutions.
At the October conference my right hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Miss Jennie Lee), who is a member of the Government, was able to point out in her chairman's address that 9 per cent. of Britain's population control over 80 per cent. of personal wealth. She wondered how, in this situation, trade unionists could be expected to adhere to an incomes policy. This maldistribution of wealth must be tackled and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the First Secretary should study with care the concluding chapter in the T.U.C.'s economic review entitled "Capital Growth and Equality". My right hon. Friend made some carefully selected references to this important document. I say "carefully selected" because she did not refer, for example, to the passage in the review which sets out how more and more wealth in this country is being accumulated in fewer and fewer hands. It sets out how the balance could be redressed by a capital wealth tax. This is what the Government should be tackling instead of pursuing trade unionists and this policy which is a will o' the wisp.

5.50 p.m.

Earl of Dalkeith: Apart from the moment when the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Roy Hughes) described his reactions to our Motion as being nauseating, unlike his right hon. Friend, who said that she was fascinated, I found myself in agreement with a great deal of what he said, although I do not


go the whole way with him on the matter of a wealth tax.
The hon. Member appeared to be complaining about us stirring things up in connection with the Government's incomes policy, but I do not think he should criticise us on that. If we feel that something is basically wrong, basically un-British and bad for the country, it is right that we should stir it up to the greatest extremes.
One cannot comment on the Government's particular brand of incomes policy without examining their justification for having such a policy. With the wisdom of hindsight such an examination is very revealing, and what it reveals is fairly horrifying. There are few items of Labour Party policy which testify quite so eloquently to the ruination of our country which is taking place. Having inherited what was a temporarily mediocre economic situation, of perfectly soluble proportions, the actions of the then Chancellor, now Home Secretary, succeeded in making matters infinitely worse.
Since then, the change to a new Chancellor, who was a slave to the same philosophy, has merely and predictably compounded our state of grief. All the time, in the background, there has been the real architect of disaster, the Prime Minister himself, a man who has exposed himself as being plainly dedicated more to the promotion of Socialism than to the well-being of our population. He is the real villain of the piece, the creator of the state of perpetual crisis which gives him the necessary pretext for running a system which involves State control of the private pocket in the individual. That is what this control of incomes is.
The right hon. Gentleman is the master-mind who has brought our country so far along the road towards economic ruin. I further charge him with having done this deliberately. Because the whole justification for having such tyrannical control over the individual is our economic plight, it is important that we should be absolutely clear how we have arrived in such a state. If we are to find the quickest way of getting out of it we must know how we arrived there.
The charge I make it a grave one and I shall seek to substantiate it. No one

would question that the Prime Minister is a clever man. He has available to him the best economic advice which one could find anywhere. It is stretching the imagination too far to suppose that we have sunk to the present depths by accident or incompetence. It is all part of the purpose of the "gritty and purposeful government" which he promised us. We know now that a little more oil might have been more appropriate than grit, but that is a minor matter compared with what is involved in the general purpose aspect. This purpose is becoming all the more plain to those not too naive to see it. It is the pursuit of Socialism at all costs and to hell with the rest.
What is the evidence for saying this? First, we have the contracting out of our world rôle—the betrayal of our friends, allies and dependants whose combined strength was the shield of the Western nations and the free world. So, having at the start of his reign determined to turn his back on the world on the ground that we could not afford it, he has taken every step to try to ensure that we cannot afford it. Secondly, there is the deliberate creation of crisis after crisis in recognition of the fact that only when we are in dire straits are the people prepared to swallow almost any remedy that is served to them. With every remedy consisting of a further dose of Socialism and a further shift to the Left, he achieves his ruinous purpose. Why else should he look so cock-a-hoop, when the nation is crumbling around his ankles, when any normal man would be grovelling in abject apology? I was glad to hear the right hon. Lady, for the first time for many months, saying she regretted she did something wrong.

Mr. John Page: The right hon. Lady did not say that she did anything wrong. She said that her right hon. Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) did it wrong when he was the Minister.

Earl of Dalkeith: I think that my hon. Friend is correct, but at least it was a Government admission that they did something wrong.
That is something very rare. Unless we have more admissions of that kind, I fear that the last remaining respect which people have for Parliament will fast disappear.
Reverting to my theme it is precisely what the Prime Minister intended should happen, relying on his gullible cohorts to come along year after year and month after month contentedly believing the story of jam tomorrow, or the next day. Here they are, always turning up and supporting him.

Mr. Heffer: Mr. Heffer rose—

1624

Earl of Dalkeith: I do not want to give way, as I wish to make my speech as quickly as possible so as not to take up the time of the House, and think I may be able to anticipate the point the hon. Gentleman has in mind.
But has the Prime Minister, at last, made the mistake of thinking that by controlling the pockets of the population he can also control their minds. Never before in peace or war have we had a Government who have advanced so far along the road towards dictatorial suppression of freedom. Never before was the phrase "in the national interest" so over-worked and abused. Never before has the average Briton been so brainwashed by constant squeeze and freeze into accepting it as the norm, like the man who grows to enjoy ill-health.
There are signs that we are resigning ourselves to the worst with a shrug instead of challenging each new outrage as it comes. Perhaps our climate teaches us to accept what cannot be changed, but because we have grown accustomed to enjoying bad weather there is no reason for enjoying bad government and all that this means in terms of the compulsory freeze. Tacit acceptance of this policy of strangulation by the trade unions is perhaps the most surprising thing of all.

Mr. Heffer: Mr. Heffer rose—

Earl of Dalkeith: I am sure that the hon. Member will have an opportunity to make a speech on that very point.
Of course, we need to have restraint in wages and to match wages to productivity, but what a way to set about it. With all I he emphasis back to front, it was doomed to failure from the start. It is only natural that the more money one takes out of a man's pocket to squander on an ideological notion the more he will ask for. The more one enforces restriction to reduce produc-

tion the more one increases the unit cost of production. The more men there are drawing the dole the harder it is to secure agreement for one man with a machine to do the work of five.
And quite apart from the inhumanity of it all, can anyone suggest a more extravagant way of running the economy than by paying thousands of men vast sums of money for doing precisely nothing, as the Government have done by creating a vast pool of unemployed?
Some foreigners may think that as a country we have "had it". So long as we continue with this Government, they will be very nearly right. But I believe that there is still one hope. We are short of natural resources, and in relation to our over-population this is a very dangerous situation. However, we have one great national asset; we have a vast reservoir of latent skill, talent and brawn just waiting to be released by the right kind of leadership and incentives. This is our one natural resource, and with it I think that we could once again astonish the world with our ability to recover and prosper.
Stop-go was bad enough, but stop-stop is a prescription for disaster. As an expansionist by nature, I believe that we simply must have expansion and a let-up from this suppression from which we are suffering before we come to a complete standstill. It is just possible that we could justify permanent stop and restriction if it took control over inflation. The fact is that, although we have been suffering from the superhuman controls which the Government have applied, inflation has been worse during these last four years than in the six previous years. The cost-of-living figure has risen on average 4½ per cent. a year over the last four years, as compared with 2½ per cent. over the preceding six years. This proves that this policy has not succeeded in controlling inflation.
When I talk about expansion, I do not mean the sort of synthetic boom which the Government are doubtless planning to coincide with the next General Election, followed by more squeeze and freeze as before. No one believes the promises of politicians any more, but at least there are some sane members of the community who remember that for 13 relatively golden years Conservative methods did work in practice, to the advantage of


the whole population in terms of prosperity, a rising quality of life, and, above all, freedom from the disastrous controls which we are condemning today.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: I understand that the noble Lord the Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith) represents the Scottish aristocracy. I am certain that he does not represent workers' opinion in Scotland. I am sure that he will understand if I do not follow him into the byways of the ideas which he has attempted to propound but, instead, comment on some of the wider aspects that have been raised by hon. Members opposite.
As a result of neither the noble Lord's speech, nor of any other speech, are we any nearer to an understanding of the Opposition's policy. Why are they complaining? We have gathered that their opposition to the prices and incomes policy is because wages have risen too high. That is their basic complaint.
One hon. Member opposite said that the Motion had been tabled because the policy had failed from a Labour Party point of view, not from a Tory point of view. There are some problems opposite. There is some difference of opinion as to why this Motion was tabled. It does not require much imagination to understand the circumstances in which it was tabled. It is no secret that the Shadow Cabinet listened last week to an organ performance by the Leader of the Opposition; at the time he was playing the "Enigma Variations" and the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) said, I suspect, "That is it. That is what we ought to do—the 'Enigma Variations'. Let us table a Motion on prices and incomes".
Although it may be true that the right hon. Member for Enfield, West did not write the Motion, it was his suggestion and, therefore, the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) wrote out the Motion and it is now on the Order Paper. There may have been some discussion about this, because hon. Members opposite could have stolen the clothes of the Labour Party; they could have quoted accurately from the Labour Party conference debate and put that quotation on the Order Paper. But they said, "That would be too dishonest. It would

be too hypocritical. We had better not do that. Let us stick to the bare bones. We will try to make the case accordingly".
So the Motion appears. The intention behind it, with all the ingenuity of the right hon. Member for Enfield, West, was, "If we table it in these terms, there may be some division among ourselves, but one thing which we can certainly do is divide the Government benches. We can recruit some support on the Government side to defeat the Government's policy".
There is a lack of understanding here of the whole purpose of the wage argument. The fact is that most hon. Members opposite, unlike the noble Scottish Lord, who represents the aristocracy, represent the employers. They collectively speak on behalf of the employers* associations, while we on this side of the House try to put forward the trade union point of view. It is, therefore, impossible to subscribe to the hope expressed by the right hon. Member for Mitcham that both sides of the House—both employer opinion and trade union opinion—could combine to defeat the Government's policy. This is impossible because, if the Government were defeated under those circumstances, the employers' point of view would be bound to prevail in the end.
Therefore, the Left on this side of the House could never join the Tories in such an operation, because by doing so they would be promoting the employers' point of view; and the whole purpose of our political and trade union activity is to defeat that point of view. Therefore, the hope or theory expressed by the right hon. Member for Mitcham is a non-starter.
Hon. Members opposite have said that the problem is that wages have risen too fast. They have obviously made out the case, and are still doing so on behalf of employers, that wages have exceeded those which prevailed during their period of government. This is borne out by the figures produced this week by the Departments concerned. During the four years of Tory Government from 1960 to 1964, real wages for manual workers rose by 10·3 per cent. From 1964 to 1968, according to Government figures, they have risen by 11·8 per cent. Manual workers have fared better during


four years of Labour government than they did under four years of employers' government.
The Opposition still say that the policy has failed. We on this side say that it has failed for totally different reasons. The arguments which have been advanced to support the employers' view that wages must be held back have led them to advocate wages' contracts—in other words, contract law. That is the restriction which the Tories would like to be placed upon wages. They want to take wage negotiation away from the methods used so far and place it under the restriction of contract law. Such a scheme has all the problems which are attendant upon the scheme in operation in the United States.
Why could not the Government have spelled out in some detail support for their own policies in the Amendment? Why is there this nebulous arrangement of words? The answer is that the Government realise that there is no support in the country for their incomes policy. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is not true."] It is borne out by the overwhelming majorities recorded by the whole Labour movement against the policy.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said at the annual conference of the Labour Party that while the Government could not take an instruction from conference they would accept that its vote was a warning. We have seen the result of that warning on the Order Paper. The Government have heeded the words spoken at the conference, and they cannot spell out in detail support for their policy because they have accepted that warning.
My right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity has said that the options are open on the future of the policy. She repeated that this afternoon, and said that a great deal of thought was being given to finding a successor to the policy. No final decisions have been taken. Therefore, the options are still as wide open as they were at the beginning. For that reason alone it was impossible to put down any detail on the Order Paper.
If the Government are now saying that the policy has not achieved what it

set out to achieve, and since opinion is demanding that the policy be ended, it obviously cannot be put on the Order Paper and voted on. Those are further reasons for not spelling this out in detail.

Sir Edward Brown: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he understood his right hon. Friend to say in her speech that she is contemplating change in the prices and incomes policy, in other words, doing away with the third prices and incomes policy when the present one ends in 1969? Hon. Members on this side understood clearly that the Minister was saying that she would have to introduce another one.

Mr. Atkinson: Obviously, the hon. Gentleman was not present then.

Sir E. Brown: I was here all the time.

Mr. Atkinson: If the hon. Gentleman was he would have heard as clearly as I did that the Government were now thinking about the policy to succeed that now being followed. Our function on this side of the House is to try to influence Government thinking to the maximum, to try to get the kind of policy we believe will give the maximum benefit to the workers we represent.

Mr. Cyril Bence: Surely the point is that it is not a matter of changing the policy of having a controlled wage-price level, but perhaps finding an alternative means by which this control can be exercised?

Mr. Atkinson: Quite, and that is no doubt part of the consideration now being given to the problem.
One of my fundamental concerns is that the second part of the policy described in "In Place of Strife" will be the successor to the present prices and incomes policy. It looks dangerously like that. Further disaster lies in that direction if the Government have such ideas. It could well be the basis of a future incomes policy, because the Government's predominant fear is of wage drift. It also preoccupied right hon. and hon. Members opposite in the long years they were in office. They also would have very much liked to design a kind of compulsory intervention along the lines suggested in the White Paper.


I heard some odd remarks earlier about the title of "In Place of Strife". It was suggested that it was a twist of "In Place of Fear", the title of a book written by our good friend Aneurin Bevan. That is not so. It came as a result of the Prime Minister's idea that Galsworthy's "Strife" was very apt. It is in place of the class struggle. If my right hon. Friend were here she would confirm this.

Mr. Lomas: I am rather puzzled. Can my hon. Friend tell me any right that is taken away from the trade union movement in the document "In Place of Strife"? On the prices and incomes policy, does not he agree that there is a need to try to get away from a free-for-all society in which only the strong and the militants shall win and the weak and the poor shall go to the wall?

Mr. Atkinson: I shall come to the free-for-all question shortly. But I shall rapidly clear up my hon. Friend's point about trade union rights that have been taken away. Plenty are taken away by this policy. The "In Place of Strife" policy suggests that workers should not have the right to withdraw their labour under certain circumstances.

Mr. Lomas: Mr. Lomas indicated dissent.

Mr. Atkinson: My hon. Friend shakes his head. Rather than allow my speech to become like a series of interventions on my part, I shall come to the three or four points I want to make
I have summed up my criticism of the Government and explained why they could not spell out in detail in the Amendment the support for their policy statement on prices and incomes, and have therefore had to leave it to other people. The point is that there is a further Amendment on behalf of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. It did not ask for the Amendment to be tabled, but we are constitutional members of the Labour Party, and it is our function as members to translate conference decisions into some form of activity here, and ensure that our rank and file can make their opinions known inside the House.
Therefore, on behalf of the National Executive Committee we put down as an Amendment the words used in a motion

moved by Mr. Frank Cousins, of the Transport and General Workers' Union and Mr. Hugh Scanlon, of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, at the annual conference of the Labour Party where it was overwhelmingly carried. I regret that Mr. Speaker was unable to select the Amendment, but it is on the Order Paper, to give our rank and file members the chance to express themselves in this way. Therefore, it is there on behalf of the National Executive Committee.
In passing, I might say that it was unable to table the Amendment itself because of the ridiculous situation that 11 members of the Government are on the National Executive, and because of the articles of faith they adopt when they go into the Government they are not allowed to subscribe to such Amendments whilst remaining members of the Government. That is why we have done it on their behalf.

Sir C. Osborne: Is it not acknowledged by the Labour Party as a whole that conference resolutions are not binding on the Labour Cabinet? Is not that fundamental? The Government have to govern, not according to instructions from the conference.

Mr. Atkinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is absolutely true, and I thought that I had put that fairly plainly when I made the point that the Executive and conference are not allowed to instruct the Government. But the Prime Minister accepted the warning. He said so himself. It is not an instruction, but a warning. I do not want to go over the Laski argument with an earlier Prime Minister once again. I think that the House accepts what the position is.
The only title I can find for the Liberal Amendment is "In Place of Progress". It is a sort of anarchist's charter. The Liberals have had to look around to the other areas on which they thought they could get something on the Order Paper, and they have come up with this. They are saying that there should be a complete abolition of national negotiations or industry-wide negotiations and therefore wages could be negotiated only at a plant level. If that has any part in the Government's thinking, it supports some of our fears that Part 2 of "In Place of Strife" could


be a successor to the present policy. I hope that does not come about. I hope that the Liberals are not having much influence on the Government in suggesting total abolition of national negotiations.
One of the biggest problems of the motor car industry is the absence of industry-wide negotiations. If large employers like Vauxhall, Ford, B.L.M.C. and the rest wrote into their contracts with suppliers of components a fair wages clause which was agreed throughout the industry, we would eliminate many of the problems.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: One might eliminate the problems, but at what price?

Mr. Arthur Lewis: At the price of saving industrial strife.

Mr. Atkinson: What we want is some degree of industrial harmony. We want to do away with the periodic industrial upheavals that bedevil the motor industry. I have said that one way is for an assembly company to write a fair wages clause into its agreements with suppliers of components. At the moment, the parent company, as it were, which assembles the components, is responsible only for specification of materials, questions of quantity, inspection limits, etc. It is not concerned in wage agreements in the component suppliers' factories. I believe that this is one way in which we could help solve the motor industry's troubles.
The Liberals say, "Abolish the lot. We do not want industry-wide negotiations". Imagine such a situation in a nationalised industry, such as electricity supply. Negotiations would be at individual power stations. Some might offer 8s. 6d. an hour to supply 240 volts while others offered 10s. 6d. It would be an anarchic situation.
The right hon. Member for Mitcham said that wages had risen too much during the period of the Labour Government.

Mr. R. Carr: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to misrepresent me. That is not what I said. Our case is that wages have risen under this policy in relation to the cost of living and productivity, contrary to the Govern-

ment's prices and incomes policy, which is a different matter.

Mr. Atkinson: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for confusing the matter a little further. What is he now saying? Is he saying that wages have not gone up too high in his opinion?

Sir C. Osborne: He is saying that the policy has failed.

Mr. Atkinson: Has it failed because the workers have had too much? Or has it failed because they have had a bad deal? This is the question the right hon. Gentleman must answer.

Mr. R. Carr: It has failed from all these points of view, including the worker's point of view. I suspect that when, earlier in his speech, the hon. Gentleman gave figures about real increases in earnings under the Labour Government as compared with the Conservative Government, he was leaving out of account the very important and large effects of increases in taxation under this Government. The real take-home, keep-in-your-pocket pay has not gone up.

Mr. Atkinson: We are now on to the real basis.
I want to finish on this theme of how the workers have failed to get a fail deal within capitalist society. This is, after all, part of the purpose of our political activity. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that capitalism has failed to solve the problems of the workers. Hon. Members opposite cannot have it all ways. What have we had in the post-war years? We have had a succession of Chancellors from both sides blaming wages for our economic problems. They all said that wages were too high. Not one has failed to make that comment.
We had a long succession of policies put up by right hon. Members opposite. Most of those present opposite were in the House when those policies were being designed. The policies included the pay pause and the plateau. Mr. Harold Macmillan clung desperately to some sort of plateau. He said that high wages were ruining the country's economy. There were the "three wise men" and the N.I.C.—better known as "Nicky". We have had all sorts of delightful titles, but now we are on prices and incomes. It is the end of a long line of policies


exclusively designed to restrict wage-earners' rights.
All our Governments, from both sides, have accused the wage earners of getting too much out of the economy, or taking something to which they were not entitled, and it is utter nonsense. But because the idea has been propagated for so long, we are living in a low-wage economy, and this is our problem. It should be the job of every hon. Member to shout as loud as he can that the solution to our problems is in higher wages. These difficulties have been with us so long because we have always tried to argue that wages are far too high.
Let us take this situation in Fords as an example. In the headlines this week the new settlement has been described as the most magnificent since the war. Much Press praise has been given to it. The settlement was made by Mr. Blakeman, who is now to become a Government employee. But is it such a magnificent achievement? Let us examine the position. The skilled worker at Fords in 1939 was earning 2s. 5d. an hour, or £5 16s. a week. At that time, Fords believed in a high-wage philosophy. That was the basis of the firm's ideas. Indeed, it paid wages higher than in most other industries at the time.
Under the so-called magnificent new agreement the new rate is £25 6s. 8d. a week. But the index of retail prices shows that the Ford workers should be £5 better off in order to maintain the 1939 standard. No one can challenge the fact that a man earning £5 16s. before the war could have a higher living standard than a man earning £25 6s. 8d. now. None of us can challenge it.

Dr. Shirley Summerskill: My hon. Friend has not mentioned the women at Fords. Does not he agree that they at least are better off under the new agreement?

Mr. Atkinson: It is difficult to make comparisons in their case, because so few of them are eligible to claim equal pay. There are not so many doing manual work and, therefore, equal jobs. Before the war, there were even fewer. There is no real comparison. However, the agreement is a magnificent step forward for them and I congratulate those who negotiated equal pay. I would like to

see equal pay brought in throughout the country, which can afford it and should do it.
The point I am making is that we have not improved the lot of the workers over those 30 years of capitalism. All these wages policies have failed. A London busman, earning £4 10s. a week before the war and living in a council house, is now worse off after 30 years of capitalism. We reject this intervention in the whole process of wage agreements. It has failed. There is no such thing as a free-for-all. There is no employer standing at the factory gate handing out bonus packets to workers. Wages have to be fought for, and in the case of 10 million workers in this country they have to be earned by piecework conditions. Their wages are measured by their individual output and there is no free-for-all.

Sir C. Osborne: The hon. Gentleman asked someone to contradict him on his claim that the Ford workers now are not better off than they were in 1939. He gave £5 15s. as the wage then and £25 as the wage today. What he did not give was the purchasing power of the £ in those two years. The internal purchasing power of the £ today is about one-third of what it was in 1939. On that basis alone, the worker today is far better off than he was in 1939. Further, the social benefits that he now draws are incomparably higher than they were in 1939. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's argument is not true.

Mr. Atkinson: The point I am making is that the index of retail prices over a 30-year comparison shows that the £ is now worth 5s. 5d.

Sir C. Osborne: Sir C. Osborne indicated dissent.

Mr. Atkinson: The hon. Member shakes his head, but the Government disclosed these figures a fortnight ago. If we take the 1938 basis, the £ today is worth 5s. 5d. If the hon. Member looks it up in HANSARD, he will see that I am correct. I am sorry to take so long, but I seem to provoke so many comments.
As to the change that is taking place, of course there is an increase in the social wage; of course the Labour Party and the Labour Government have done an


enormous amount to increase the social wage. The family wage has gone up, but the fact is that if wives were not working there would be a wage revolution. It is the wages of working wives who augment the wages of their husbands that enable this situation to continue. That is the point. These 30 years of capitalism, these wage policies, have singularly failed. It is our job to support the workers at last, and to pay no attention to the voices opposite, but to try to do all we can to change the policy of the Government.

6.33 p.m.

Mr. John Biffen: Connossieurs of incomes policy may well have felt that they had been summoned to a requiem this afternoon when they saw the terms of this Motion, because there was a widespread expectation—and that eternal optimist the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) certainly felt that there was some indication of it—that the Government would make an announcement that we were seeing the withering; away of the statutory obligations which now attend the Government's prices and incomes policy.
That certainly was not my understanding. I turned up at a wake expecting to find the widow in her weeds, wailing and saying, "Yet it was a great policy while it lasted." But there has been none of that; she is unrepentant. Admittedly, the policy is yet again to be evolved when the present legislation comes to an end, but the Minister was more disposed to apply the kiss of life than to wail at its passing.
So now we move to a new situation. What did the right hon. Lady say? I made a very careful note. She said that the policy had made a modest but vital—and that is the key word—contribution to the Government's economic strategy. That other eternal optimist, the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Roy Hughes), concentrated on the modesty, and said that even Aubrey Jones had said that it only made a modest difference in one of his many Prices and Incomes reports. "Vital", was the word used by the right hon. Lady. It reminded me of Browning's lines:
Oh, the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away!
There is no doubt what is the psychology of the Government in the

highest places on this matter. The office has transformed the holder. Whatever scepticism the right hon. Lady may have had about the ability of the Government to intervene in industrial processes before she went to the Department, she is now as enthusiastic an advocate of prices and incomes policy, as we understand that term, as was her predecessor. It was Talleyrand who said, "Pas trop de zéle," and it is the sheer enthusiasm of the right hon. Lady which begins to worry me, an enthusiasm particularly evident when she waxes about productivity.
That is a five-syllable word, almost invented for the politician. It has that ring of solemnity and dignity which so appeals to the Privy Councillors. According to the Prime Minister, such productivity agreements must be "copper-bottomed", "stringently tested", says the Chancellor, "genuine", says the White Paper, Cmnd. 3590, under which we now operate the policy.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) was kind enough to refer to the digging and delving I do by way of Parliamentary Questions to find out a little about these productivity agreements. I take one instance only, which refers to a pay settlement affecting the 600 fitters employed by Swan Hunter and Tyne Shipbuildiers. I will not weary the House with the full quotation, but there were Questions on 19th December, 31st January, and 7th February, to establish exactly by what amount earnings had gone up as a result of the productivity agreement and by what amount productivity had gone up by that agreement.
I was told, on asking on Friday, 31st January,
What have been the percentage increases in rates, earnings and productivity over the past two years",
that the
settlement superseded a variety of rates and earnings in five different yards. Information in the form requested is not available."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st January, 1969; Vol. 776, c. 391.]
Then, in all innnocence, I asked on what criteria the Minister determined whether or not the recent pay settlement affecting the 600 fitters employed by Swan Hunter and Tyne Shipbuilders fell within the incomes policy in view of the fact that information indicating the estimated percentage increase in rates, earnings, and


productivity arising from the settlement was not available? "Ah," says the Under-Secretary:
This settlement has been examined in the light of the criteria set out in the White Paper,…(Cmnd. 3590), and the company has supplied my Department with sufficient information for that purpose."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th February, 1969; Vol. 777, c. 206.]
But not sufficient is available for the House to be told. Not sufficient information for us to know by what percentage the increase had been. I was prepared, being reasonably good-natured, to let that pass, to say no more. These things happen, I am sure. There was probably a very good example, and tradition in this part of the world and in this company, of increasing productivity and we could take it for granted and give the benefit of the doubt to the Department. But only a few days later I saw a Financial Times headline which said "Fears that Tyne shipyards productivity deal is misfiring." This was referring to other workers than the 600 fitters to whom I have referred, but it is the same area of employment, the same group of employment.
I quote briefly from that article. It says:
The pay and productivity deal recently agreed for 3,000 boilermakers, shipwrights and blacksmiths "—
I am not now talking about 600 fitters, but people in different employment working in the same area—
in the Tyne Shipbuilding Consortium and described as heralding a new era on the river is said to be misfiring. Nine weeks of operation have shown that while most of the men are receiving higher wages under the agreement they have not increased their production in line with this. … Sir John Hunter has revealed himself as unhappy about this state of affairs. He warned that unless productivity increased in line with higher wages a 'hopeless future' faced the yards.
I make no comment on that, only to say that when a Minister acts with the enthusiasm and certainty with which the right hon. Lady acts I am somewhat puzzled when these situations come to light.
I pass to the second point, which very much flows from the first. There is a little bit of sleight of hand going on and the House should be forewarned. We should apply our own early-warning system to what I suspect the Department

of Employment and Productivity is up to concerning the pay of the chairmen of nationalised industries.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Hear, hear.

Mr. Biffen: I am glad to have the substantial support of the hon. Gentleman.
Some may remember that a while ago the pay of Mr. Jocelyn Hambro excited a degree of comment, mostly from hon. Members opposite. As a result, it was announced that the National Board for Prices and Incomes—that repository of knowledge, dignity and discernment—was to carry out a wide-ranging investigation. We thought, "Perhaps now we shall know a bit more about what goes to make the pay of the successful entrepreneurs, managers and executives in the private sector." But there is now a widespread expectation that this report is to be used as an excuse or pretext for a substantial increase in the pay of chairmen of nationalised industries. I am not entering into the muddy arguments about whether they are being paid too much or not enough. I am merely concerned at this point to try to alert the House to what is happening.
I am immensely suspicious about what the Secretary of State said this afternoon. Again, I noted the words. She talked about "loose comparability" and her anxiety to ensure that the public sector was treated no less favourably than the private sector. This could be open to very interesting interpretations. For instance, it could be said that the right hon. Lady is anxious to ensure that the public sector chairmen of nationalised industries are treated no less favourably than their counterparts in the private sector. That is an interpretation which will increasingly be put on her words.
Having decided that the pay increase for the chairmen of nationalised industries should proceed to bring them in line with their private enterprise counterparts under the term of "loose comparability", we shall be interested to know at what speed it will prevail. May we be assured, even this evening, that it will be at a speed no more than the permitted ceiling of 3½ per cent. per annum? Make no mistake: that was the rule which was applied to the workers at Glasgow Airport.
I wish to verify that by quoting from HANSARD an Answer given to me by the


Under-Secretary of State concerning the pay of staff at Glasgow Airport. I will not quote it entirely, but the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Don-caster (Mr. Harold Walker), referring to the claim which had been made by the staff at Glasgow Airport, said:
The Government were informed that the claim for British Airports Authority rate"—
which was what the Glasgow staff were asking for—
was based on comparability, and as such increases are limited by the ceiling to an annual rate of 3½ per cent. it was not consistent with incomes policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th November, 1968; Vol. 772, c. 61.]
Three and a half per cent. was the rule for the staff at Glasgow Airport. There will be a widespread expectation that the same rule will apply to Lord Robens.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: I assume that comparability will go further down the scale. I assume that the deputy chairman and all the officials and staff will also ask for comparability and that then all the workers in similar industries will ask for comparability. I assume that the Minister will give exactly the same treatment to them.

Mr. Biffen: That undoubtedly hostile question was more intended for the hon. Gentleman's own Front Bench than for me.
I should like to touch on another aspect of the policy which clearly increasingly occupies our mind when we talk about the next stage. What I say may not entirely please all of my hon. Friends. I refer to the belief that, somehow or other, there can be a voluntary incomes policy which is sub-contracted to some outside agencies and bodies, and that, in particular, the T.U.C.—one might say, quoting the right hon. Lady, "even the T.U.C."—is conceived as possibly having a rôle. With that zeal and enthusiasm of which I have already spoken, she has told the House that she is having consultations with the T.U.C. about what rôle it might have, presumably as some kind of supervisor of a voluntary incomes policy.
The assumption that non-unionised members will be subject to the same restraints as unionised members I leave on one side, because that is an argument which hon. Members opposite will be par-

ticularly keen to deploy. I ask the House to consider the willingness of unions to accept T.U.C. supervision. This debate could not have happened at a more apt time in this respect. We have just seen the T.U.C. trying to arbitrate in the very delicate situation in the steel industry between blue collar unions and the A.S.T.M.S. and the C.A.W.U. It would be indelicate to quote what Mr. Clive Jenkins has had to say in reaction to the finding of the T.U.C.
I should like to go back a little further to the annual conference of the Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union, in March, 1967, when Mr. David Currie, the president of that union, discussed the possibility of the T.U.C. having some rôle as supervisor in a so-called voluntary incomes policy. I quote from the Financial Times:
Referring to the T.U.C.'s proposals to run its own incomes policy, Mr. Currie said: 'We cannot say that Congress will succeed in applying such a policy. We do not know if it has the skill, the knowledge and the authority to make it work.'
The report goes on:
Mr. Currie pointed out that the T.U.C. entered this field with substantial weaknesses. It represented only about one in three of employed people and about one in five non-manual workers.
The situation which exercised the mind of the president of the C.A.W.U. back in the spring of 1967 has been exacerbated considerably by the dispute which is proceeding in the steel industry.
We must, therefore, realise the ineffective sanctions which we can expect from the T.U.C. in applying such a policy. The idea that we can have a voluntary incomes policy is an illusion. It would be a farce. To be told that it would be a subsidiary rôle in economic policy is relegating it to being a mini-farce—and it is not much the better on that account.

Mr. E. Shinwell: The hon. Gentleman is presenting a very interesting point of view. Apparently, he is opposed to the prices and incomes policy adumbrated by the Government. He has observed that a voluntary policy supervised by the T.U.C. would be of no value. What does he want? Does he want a free-for-all? Does he want the workers to place a higher, and reasonable, value on their labour before they hire it out?


I would accept that, but does the hon. Gentleman want it?

Mr. Biffen: I will—as the next part of my speech was headed—"Reality".
I want the Government to confine themselves to what I believe to be their prime and indispensable economic rôle. The most important function which they can discharge in this respect is in relation to the money supply. We come back to an argument which might have been dismissed out of hand by those who were brought up and whose arteries were formed in Keynesian days—dare I say such provocative words to the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell)?
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that those who argue that economic policy and Government control of economic policy should proceed primarily through the money supply and balancing aggregate demand of the resources available, are receiving not merely considerable encouragement from current economic trends and thinking, but that the Government are reluctant captive converts to much of this as a result of the tutelage which they now receive from the International Monetary Fund.
To those like the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson), who imagine that this is a policy which is socially regressive, and like the right hon. Lady, who was brash enough to talk about her policy as oriented towards social justice, let me say that the policy today with its heavy emphasis on inflation that we have experienced over the last few years, has not benefited the workers in this country.

Mr. John Mendelson: Mr. John Mendelson rose—

Mr. Biffen: No, I will deal with this.
The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) can shake his head, but I call in the ample reinforcement of the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) on this point. It has been the rentier class which has benefited most from inflation. A study of the Financial Times index will prove that all the increases in prices or in wages or salaries about which we have talked today have been outstripped by the rise in that index. It is the rentier class which is the major beneficiary of inflation. If the hon. Gentleman really is dedicated to social justice he

should be arguing on the side of those like myself, who claim that the prime responsibility of the Government is to control inflation by controlling it at the very source—

Mr. Mendelson: Mr. Mendelson rose—

Mr. Biffen: I am coming to the conclusion of my speech.

Mr. Bence: As a toolmaker, in 1932, 1 worked for a company in the Midlands which provided bicycle racks for its workers. In the same plant, in 1951 those racks had gone, for a car park.

An Hon. Member: Their wives are working.

Mr. Biffen: I am grateful to learn this from the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East but I cannot understand its immediate relevance. If it is the argument of the hon. Member that only inflation provides rising living standards for the working population, then he is denying to his eyes the evidence of the progress of other countries which have had similar rises in living standards not accompanied by inflation.

Mr. Mendelson: Just before the hon. Gentleman returns to his peroration, I want to welcome his appeal that we should all return to reality. He has just done so by disclosing that he fully agrees with the kind of policy that the International Monetary Fund might try to impose. In speaking of the salaries of chairmen of nationalised industries he mentioned muddy waters, but he did not tell the House that it was his hon. and right hon. Friends who pressed the Prime Minister to put up the salaries by several thousand pounds.

Mr. Biffen: I made the specific point that I was not seeking to judge whether or not the salaries should go up; I was merely saying that the Government, having landed themselves with this policy, and to be consistent with their policy, were pledged to behave in a certain fashion. It was no more than a deliberate attempt to acquaint the House of that. Those of my hon. Friends who see cause to object to the policy are perfectly entitled so to argue, as I would. However, I will not be deflected from my peroration, because I accept that the advice that has been offered by the International Monetary Fund is some


of the best economic advice that any Government have had to listen to during the post-war period.
Our success in turning that good advice to reality and achievement depends on the willingness with which the Government are prepared to abandon their present concepts, to accept price and profit as major determinates in a market-oriented economy and to relegate prices and incomes legislation to the medieval dustbin from which it should never have emerged.

6.57 p.m.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: The hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) made a very interesting and entertaining speech. I concede that he has a certain ability to spot the sensitive areas of hon. Members on this side of the House. I do not know whether it is a natural ability or whether it is something which he has acquired, but he is not bad at it.
I will address myself to points which are of concern to this side of the House. The argument about prices, incomes and productivity is taking place on this side of the House, by which I mean within the Labour and trade union movement. Hon. Members opposite have nothing to contribute since they are not genuinely interested in solving the problems of the workers and there is nothing wrong in admitting this.
I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend here. At the risk of damaging my reputation as a dark horse, I hope that she will take note that I intend to support her. I say that deliberately. This has been a bad time for me. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) described me as Right-wing, and he has called me "safe". I am a little perturbed at being labelled safe; it might be misconstrued as having something to do with supporting family planning. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith) suggested that anybody on this side who dared to try to understand what the Government were trying to do was just a gullible cohort of the Prime Minister.
We on this side have some hard thinking to do. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) that there is no support for, not necessarily the Government's prices

and incomes policy, but no support for an attempt to find a satisfactory prices and incomes policy. There is a difference here.
I say that notwithstanding conference decisions. I am not unduly influenced by Labour Party conference decisions. This is probably because I have never been in a majority in their decisions in the past, and have never been able to argue from a position of strength knowing that I have a party conference decision behind me. Usually I am more concerned in case someone in party circles expects me to toe the line, since I do not agree with so many decisions which have been made. I am surprised at some of my colleagues who use the argument that at last we have a party conference decision with which we can agree as if it were the be all and end all of everything in the Labour movement.
Unlike so many other problems associated with prices and incomes, psychology plays a bigger part in our attempt to understand the criticisms than the logical analysis that we delude ourselves we are making.
I say that because of the very frustrations and difficulties involved in finding the right economic policy, as one who is attempting to understand what the movement is about. Such people as the gnomes of Zurich, the I.M.F. and other vague figures behind the scenes who seem to be able to make decisions over which we have little or no control, help create those difficulties and frustrations, causing comrades in the labour and trade union movement to fasten on to something which they can understand, namely, "Let us get a conference decision in our favour". Some of my hon. Friends make more out of getting a conference decision than of facing up to our economic problems and the difficulty of finding the right solutions, and I want to look at the psychology which arises from it.
I am sure that all hon. Members accept that wages have risen faster than prices. However, people outside this House do not, and wage earners do not. I am not condemning the Government for that. I merely say that there is something wrong somewhere with the thinking and approach of many people in the Labour and trade union movement. They do not accept the facts. They work on impressions,


on what they want to believe, and this is the responsibility of some of the critics on this side of the House who are not encouraging people outside to make a critical analysis of what is happening. They are not asking them to examine the facts. Instead, they are playing on their misunderstandings and impressions in an effort to gain support. I suppose that we are all guilty of this from time to time, but it is beginning to get out of hand.

Mr. Heffer: I hope that my hon. Friend will be careful about what he is saying.

Mr. Brown: I am usually quite careful.
I will give another example of what I mean. It arises at any conference in a housing estate where people are concerned about their rents. The impression one gains is not that the National Board for Prices and Incomes reported that rents in Scotland should not be increased by more than 7s. 6d. a week unless there were exceptional circumstances. The argument put up by the tenants is that the Government have said that rents have to go up by 7s. 6d. every year. In other words, there has been a failure to get across what the Government have done and what the National Board for Prices and Incomes has said.
Another example is transport. The attitude of people on housing estates such as those in my constituency is that transport workers have had a raw deal because wage increases have been the subject of difficulty. I have not time now to go into the complications or arguments involved. But those who argue that we should have done something to help transport workers are the very people who are most vocal in their criticism when fares have to go up to pay for wage increases. They cannot have it both ways. I am not objecting to wage increases, because I think that the rates of pay in the transport industry are a disgrace and are one of the reasons why we have poor services.
Some of my colleagues have a tremendous responsibility for not turning the minds of our own supporters to the problems which we are trying to solve. I concentrate on my colleagues, because I am not concerned with that lot opposite or about what they say.
To give another example, recently I attended a teach-in on productivity organised by the Post Office Engineering Union. I regard that union as a first-class body. It is well organised and operates in an industry which offers every opportunity for arriving at good productivity agreements. The union had just negotiated a substantial increase at a time when the Post Office had also announced increases in telephone rental charges and television licence fees, and I was surprised to hear a member bitterly condemning the increase in gas prices following a wage award in the gas industry. It is that sort of inconsistence which perturbs me, and it raises problems which it is for the Labour and trade union movement to find solution. No contribution can be made by hon. Members opposite.
I ask those who have signed the critical Amendment, how they would protect the unorganised workers. How, for example, do they propose to deal with the civil servants? There is something in this criticism. Those responsible for the Amendment are skilful, in exploiting the divisions on our side of the House. But what is the logic of the development taking place? Is it that we should encourage civil servants to be more militant and indulge in industrial action? Is it that we should encourage bank employees to do the same? That is the logic of the policy which too many comrades are pursuing at the moment, and I think that it is dangerous.
It is the kind of policy which many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite want the trade union movement to adopt, so that a climate can be created where they can make their attacks on the movement if and when they ever get back to power. There are warnings for us all in this situation.
Let us look at the attitude which lies behind the critical Amendment supported by a number of my hon. Friends. It refers to the extent to which legislation restricting wage and salary movements has hindered both legitimate trade union activity and economic expansion. I am addressing these questions as much to myself as to some of my colleagues, because I do not know the answers. Equally, I am sure that it is not good enough for trade unionists and their leaders merely to repeat that collective


bargaining means free collective bargaining and that, no matter what the effect on anyone else, if they can get an agreement out of an employer, no one has the right to interfere. I do not accept that. It is time that more active trade unionists faced up to their responsibilities and said that they do not accept it, either.
Does it follow that, because one has strength, because one can win a wage award, one has no responsibility if it means putting a company out of the export market? Does it mean that one has no responsibility to feed back some of the extra in productivity to the consumer? Surely it is time that someone said, following a wage agreement, "What about the social services that have to be provided? How do we provide for them?". These are matters which concern us all.
Finally, who is to determine the rewards to which people are entitled? Who determines the relative importance of the doctor, the university teacher, the joiner, or the civil servant? Has anyone worked out a way to answer those questions? I recognise that the contribution of the man who sweeps the streets, in some cases, is greater than that of some professional people. But we need to rethink our attitude on what constitutes a contribution to the community. Is it to be measured simply in terms of the length of apprenticeship that we serve or the academic skills that we have? These are all problems for us, but they are all linked with trying to find out what is a just prices and incomes policy.

Mr. Heffer: Marx explained it long ago.

Mr. Brown: I do not know what Marx would have said in 1969. I am concerned about what my comrades are saying in 1969. If they bring Marx up to date we might get more constructive thinking.
I am perturbed about the psychology of our present situation, because of the attempt that seems to be made to direct this hostility against the Government. I want to discuss it and thrash it out.
I took down some of my right hon. Friend's words, as no doubt did hon. Members opposite. However, I am not trying to be mischievous; I am genuinely

trying to be helpful in the interests of my party and the people that I represent. I thought that my right hon. Friend said that we must look to the future and decide whether we need a statutory policy. If it is any comfort, I share her dilemma. I do not say this in any critical sense, but I should almost like to pray. I have never believed that it did any good, but I pray that we can find some way of uniting the Labour and trade union movement. I think my right hon. Friend is desperately anxious to do this. But it is not helped by the assumption made by many outside and inside the House that the Government are hell bent on being bloody minded with our supporters. I do not think that they are doing it deliberately. It may be that some members of the Government almost enjoy doing it—that is a different matter—but I do not think that it is being done deliberately.
We have plenty to sort out. We need to do something about salaries and dividends. We get a lot of fun from the funny men opposite about the salaries of chairmen of nationalised industries. I think that this will be difficult, but we must do something.
We need to be seen to be doing something about the William Hickey society. It should not always appear as though we are trying ot placate the C.B.I, for the sake of getting some agreements. We are living in a class society. We cannot always get agreements, so why should we be so anxious to get agreements? Usually when that happens we are being jockeyed into a position in which we should not find ourselves.
I should like to encourage the workers to be more militant. It is ridiculous in this age that the workers should have no say about the salaries paid to management or the fees paid to directors. Directors and management can take their half days off to play golf, have their works outing, or have their cars run for them. They can do many things. I should like to see the trade unionists in the factories demanding that these things be made public and having the right to express their views on what should go on, not just as it affects them directly, but within the orbit of the factory or the company employing them.
Finally, concerning "In Place of Strife". If we can find ways and means


of dropping some of the offending things and convince our comrades in the movement that we are genuinely trying to seek a solution in the interests of all and if we can link it with ideas which might come out of the Budget, then, in the words of the Amendment, I think we can look forward to an economic policy which contains
…the promotion of a constructive and socially just economic strategy.
I hope that those are not just words which have been stuck on the Order Paper. In my innocence, perhaps, I genuinely believe that there is a willingness on the part of the Government to come up with some of the answers to the difficult problems with which we have been faced for so long.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: I am glad to have the opportunity of following the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown). Coming from an industrial conurbation myself, I share his feeling that the Government have failed lamentably to get across their prices and incomes policy to the industrial workers of this country.
My diagnosis of the Government's failure to have their policy understood may be different from that of the hon. Gentleman. First, I think that it is due to the humbug in the Government's policy about prices. If they had come clean from the start—as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to his credit, has several times done in this House—and admitted that there must be substantial price rises, there would have been less disappointment by the public about the operation of the policy.
Secondly, I agree with the newly-appointed Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Leeds, who says:
… it seems quite certain that it will never be possible to 'sell' an incomes policy to the labour market participants as a balance of payments instrument alone, or even primarily: the connection between the balance of payment and the shop floor is altogether too remote; nobody eats the exchange reserves after all, and if we do believe an incomes policy can help the balance of payments, we need to find some much more positive functions for it as well.
Having regard to the barren mutual petulance of both the Motion and the Government's Amendment, and whilst

bowing entirely to the total discretion of the Chair, I and my Liberal friends feel that the public interest would have been better served if the debate today could have been on the Amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) and his hon. Friends and the Amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) and other Liberal Members. As it is, the Motion and the Government Amendment—the substance of today's debate—are, in my view, a prime cause of the boredom, and, in many cases, the despair which people in this country feel about the conduct of public affairs at present; namely, that we spend our time here in an idle ping-pong political match ignoring the real issues which give the ordinary people so much concern.
I admit that the Conservatives have been open to considerable temptation, because the state of equity in pay and conditions of work has never been in such confusion since the memorable time when my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) first established himself in his constituency. At that time, as is well remembered, the Conservative Government flexed their muscles at the nurses, but trembled at the knees in face of many male workers receiving comparatively prosperous incomes. Now we have a Labour Government flexing their muscles at certain teachers and the builders, but trembling in the face of the doctors and certain other pressing claimants. Indeed, for many an Englishman who is the victim of the unfair part of the policy, his mortgage is now his castle.
The deficiencies in the Motion, I think, divide into two parts. First, there is a total lack of any constructive proposals whatever to take the place of the Measures which are so petulantly condemned. The reason is not far to seek. I will quote two Members of Parliament, although I have here a sheaf of evidence from other Conservatives which I will spare the House.
The hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne), writing in the Spectator on 13th September last about what he described as the "dilemmas of opposition", stated:
The classic example of this, of course, is the incomes policy. I cannot myself see any


possibility of devising a meaningful statement which will command the simultaneous endorsement of, let us say, Mr. Maudling and Sir Edward Boyle, on the one hand, and Sir Keith Joseph and Mr. Powell, on the other. So why try?
They have not tried.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), who commands such great respect on all sides of the House for his robust independence, writing in a Conservative document, "Conservative and Economic Planning" published by the Conservatives in January, 1966, said
I just cannot believe on the evidence available that a slightly lower level of demand in the economy as a whole will of itself solve the problem of rising wage costs. And here I note wish paricular interest the views of the American President's Council of Economic Advisers, when they say in their 1965 Report that 'Powerful unions can and sometimes do obtain wage increases that outrun productivity, even when the labour supply is relatively abundant'.
He concludes:
I think there is also a danger in feeling that because no incomes policy can ever be anything like 100 per cent. effective, therefore it is not worth persevering with it at all.
Those who were present when the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) opened the debate will recall that practically the whole of his speech was devoted to showing, which is such a facile task, that the incomes policy has not been 100 per cent. effective, or 100 per cent. fair. This in itself is to us not the real criticism of the policy.
The other aspect of Tory policy to which I should like briefly to draw attention is that all the remedies which they advocate when they are in a semi-constructive mood, which is as far as they ever get, are ones from which economic results can scarcely be expected within less than four years of attaining power. If they were in a political position, in the opinion polls, when they thought power was a long way off, it would be legitimate to regale this House week after week with the consequences which will flow from eventually reforming the trade unions, and eventually persuading the Inland Revenue that they have time to administer a new tax system and all the other vague Tory promises, all of which would take years to mature, even if they could work at all.
But the Conservative Party does not take the line that power is a long way

off. The Chairman of the Conservative Party, his heart bleeding for the workers of Altrincham and Sale under the incomes policy, rallies the allegiance of Conservative lady canvassers, saying that it is time they got on their working-class hats, and got out canvassing for the election which the right hon. Gentleman says may be imminent. If the Conservatives believe that they are about to take power, they should compliment the House, they should treat the House with sufficient respect, to produce measures and suggestions which are capable of yielding some results within at least 18 months. I include within this condemnation of all measures which will take a long time to fructify the much more interesting, more stimulating proposals of the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen). His suggestions are more original than those which come from the Tory Front Bench, but they are certainly not instant remedies. In my part of the world Tory policy is dismissed as being very much like some Italian woollens—pretty to some tastes, but liable to fall apart in one's hands.
Our criticism of the Government's policy has been repeated from this bench time and again during the debates on the annual festival of incomes legislation to which the Government treats us, and I do not want to repeat at length what has been said from this bench on so many occasions. Our criticism remains, that in the incomes pool in which we believe any Government have to fish, this Government have been fishing with a series of rods, instead of with lines and nets. They have been looking at and interfering with, items here and there. They have been picking on small specific cases in this instance or that, rather than facing the real challenge, which is the challenge of the outdated nation-wide or industry-wide pay agreements.
We think that this is bad strategy, because they are not facing the real dangers to the economy, and also bad tactics, because time has proved that fishing with a rod, looking into these relatively small-scale applications for pay rises and agreements for productivity, is just impracticable, and cannot be successfully done.
What we want to see is bargaining at the plant. This is where the matter can really be dealt with. I think it was Carlyle who said that when an oak tree falls the whole forest reverberates, but


that 10,000 acorns are sown in silence on the breeze. How true that is of pay bargains. It is in the day-to-day, in many cases hour-to-hour, bargains at the place of work that the significant pay increases take place, and the trouble about the nation-wide agreements which the Government persist in tolerating is that they create an unnaturally high floor, on top of which the plant bargaining then takes place as an aggravating factor.
We should like to ban nation-wide agreements—we use the word "outlawed ". One method which occurs to us is that the relevant part of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act which now excludes the trade unions might well be repealed, or re-enacted in a looser form. In the meantime, we should like to see teeth given to the new Commission for Industrial Relations so that it will have legal sanctions for something more than just obtaining information, which is the only sanction we understand it is likely to have. We should like to see it given power to intervene where it feels that important plants are not developing their plant bargaining arrangements. Secondly, we should like to see early legislation to secure the independence of the shop steward, who in future will be the key figure in operating a sensible and modern system of plant bargaining.
We do not altogether distrust the right hon. Lady's intentions. No doubt she recalls that before the Bill, which is now the Act, was given its Second Reading my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Liberal Party and I went to see her. We put to her our points about the dangers of persisting with nation-wide agreements. I am not quoting the right hon. Lady exactly, but the impression that she gave us was that she was in sympathy with our point of view, but that she must allow one more round of national agreements. We all know from our experience as parents that it is when our children ask for one more lollipop, or another quarter of an hour before going to bed, that that is the moment when the sensible person resists. But there is a further reply which is often given and which is even more dangerous than just giving in. That is when the parent says, 'You will have to go and ask your Dad". What has often happened in recent weeks is that people have been

sent to ask Dad in Downing Street, and they have got practically all they wanted, very often to the public disadvantage.
We believe, too, that early legislation to make works councils compulsory, and to give them certain powers in bargaining, is required. We are not altogether unhopeful that we shall see this from the Government, although nothing of the kind matured during the period of Tory power. In the meantime, so long as the present policy is so obviously failing to work, the victims for whom we are most concerned, are, first, the pensioners, who have no redress from the results of inflated pay claims based on the monopoly power of certain unions which at present goes unchecked, and those who are low paid.
The people in my constituency who understand the incomes policy, and who were delighted when I joined my hon. Friends in supporting the Government against certain wrecking Amendments tabled to the Bill during the summer, are those who are weakly organised, badly organised, especially the women workers, who realise that, unchecked, the big unions will get away with it, and the weakly organised will suffer. It is a fact, backed up by fairly respectable research, that something over 20 per cent. of our working population are at present sinking into relative poverty because they are not getting their fair share of pay increases.
As I said in opening, as a result of the selection of the Amendment for this debate, we feel that we are witnessing an empty charade. While that charade is carried on, as it presumably will be, in both Lobbies, I shall have no hesitation, having heard all the debate so far, in recommending my right hand hon. Friends to remain firmly in their places.

7.31 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I had not intended to deal with the Liberal Amendment, but I must make one or two comments on some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Richard Wainwright). He and his party must learn something about industrial relations. I hope that he does not think that I am being pompous. In some industries a national agreement is essential, but in others it is not, and, there, plant bargaining is probably the best way. But if this were applied


as a blanket across industry, the situation would be chaotic.
For example, would the hon. Gentleman suggest that the nurses in every hospital should negotiate within their own hospital and not have a nationally worked-out policy for pay and conditions? The question only has to be asked to provide the answer. Even in relation to the general principle of a national agreement in certain industries, does he not know that, in each industry, even where there is a national agreement, there are regional and local variations? The workers in a certain industry with a national agreement do not necessarily get precisely the same wage. An engineer working on Merseyside might not get the same as an engineer in Glasgow or Birmingham.
I therefore appeal to the hon. Member not to suggest that the panacea of all our problems and the answer to the prices and incomes policy is the blanket substitution of local plant bargaining for national agreements.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: I do not think the hon. Gentleman in the least pompous. I would point out that I represent a constituency which is 99·5 per cent. industrial, with some very large plants as well as some very small ones, and, incidentally, a large plant in the automotive industry, to which the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) referred. I believe, as a Liberal, that there is practically no limit to the possibility of plant bargaining and I look forward to a society, perhaps in my children's time, in which nurses in each hospital will do their own negotiating. I do not think that I said anything to the contrary. Naturally, the training of a sufficient number of plant negotiators is a long-term business. I do not suggest for a moment that the matter can be attended to tomorrow.

Mr. Heffer: I hope that no other hon. Member who intervenes will take up that much time, since it will mean that I will not be able to make my speech and that other hon. Members who want to speak will not have a cat in hell's chance of being called.
The hon. Member referred in his speech to the unorganised women in factories in his constituency. Without a

national agreement, those women have little chance of improving their conditions if they are, first, unorganised, and, second, bound to rely on the fact that they have no strength in their plant. I will leave that, because there is nothing else to be said about the Liberal Amendment.
I suppose that, without examining the Opposition Amendment closely, and taking my point of view, one might vote for it. But when one looks at the words closely and then listens to hon. Members, one realises that one would not be seen dead in the same Lobby with them, certainly not on this Motion. It reads:
… noting that the attempt to control incomes by law has failed in its purpose…
I assume that that means that, if the attempt had not failed, they would be very happy with the policy of my right hon. Friends and that their objection is that it has failed—in other words, that incomes have gone beyond the criteria of my right hon. Friends.
This is really the argument. I listened carefully to the speech of the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) and came to the conclusion that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is quite right—they are speaking with two voices. Immediately following this point about the Government's policy having failed, he said, "But look at what we did. Look at our policy following the 1961 pay pause. That did not fail; it did keep wages down." So the point is that it is all right keeping the workers' wages down, provided that laws are not used and one relies on the other traditional method, which is that the employer should resist every wage claim and allow protracted negotiations and arguments. Therefore, the right hon. Member's case does not commend itself to me.
I am in a curious situation regarding my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with her—not in a personal but in a political sense. There is no doubt that, today, she argued a very bad case extremely brilliantly. She is a good Minister—probably one of the best Ministers that the Government have. I have always believed this. When she took her present job, I asked her, "Do you really believe in this policy?" She said that she did, and she does. That is the great tragedy. She passionately believes that the policy


of incomes control and the prices and incomes policy generally is the right one for the Labour Party.
My right hon. Friend has the enthusiasm of the new converts to the Church, who are always more dangerous than those who were born into it. They proselytise with much greater vigour and sometimes with much more disastrous results than those who accepted it as natural from the very beginning.
Although my right hon. Friend argued cogently, she dealt in a peremptory fashion with certain points. I particularly have in mind the position of building workers. I accept that these workers want all the things she said they want. After all, conditions in the building industry have up to now been appalling. The "labour only" contracting system is pernicious and dangerous and we must try to control it if we cannot eliminate it altogether. I trust that as a result of the activities of the working party, which is now looking into this matter, this system will be eliminated.
It is true that the building workers want proper productivity agreements throughout the industry. It should be remembered that the payment by results system was first introduced in to the building industry by the Labour Party, by the Government of 1945–50, and that it was George Isaacs who appealed to my colleagues in the building industry to accept the payment by results concept.
The trouble has been that this concept applies, even now, to only about 30 per cent. of all building operatives. Thus, only a small percentage of those in the building industry are able to enjoy the national working rule agreement. When the building workers found that the Id. an hour increase which had been agreed had to be rejected—hon. Members will recall the last ditch stand which they put up; it lasted only for a few minutes, so to speak, but at least they made a battle of it—they decided to turn their attention to an extension of productivity agreements with the idea of forcing such agreements on all employers in the industry.
I urge my right hon. Friend not to believe that simply because trade unions leaders in the building industry are totally loyal to the Labour Party and

the Government they were not prepared to force a strike, and that all is well in the industry. Although a strike did not occur, mainly because of their loyalty, a residue of bitterness has been left in the industry which will take a long time to eliminate. This feeling of bitterness is particularly felt by workers who are not enjoying the ability to earn productivity bonuses based on the national working rule agreement.
The bitterness in my trade union branch must be experienced to be believed. When I receive letters from branches of the bricklayers' unions, my union and others, saying that their members are considering whether to continue to be affiliated to the Labour Party, it is obvious that the Government must note this trend, particularly since this bitterness has developed as a result of the unfair application of the prices and incomes policy.
In considering the agricultural workers, I agree with my right hon. Friend that the P.I.B. said that there was to be an exception. However, everybody knew that the pay of agricultural workers was lagging far behind that of other workers. Why was the matter referred to the Board in the first place? It was not the best sort of agreement the agricultural workers could have got, but they accepted what they were given and it is obvious that it should have been given to them in the first place, without argument. When I read in The Landworker about a branch of the union saying that its members are considering the whole question of their affiliation to the Labour Party. I am driven to urge my right hon. Friend to take note of this trend because this is the grass roots of the Labour Party speaking.
My right hon. Friend referred to the Economic Review of the T.U.C. I draw her attention to this comment on page 30 of that document:
The General Council are satisfied that trade unionists will respond to a positive challenge, but a negative and restrictive attitude on the part of the Government, expressed in and dependent for its enforcement on the legislative control of wages and salaries, to which the Trade Union Movement is opposed, is no way to win that response.
My right hon. Friend did not refer to that passage. I do not blame her. If I had been arguing her case I would have


ignored it, too. I quote it because it puts the matter in perspective.
Again, the T.U.C. says on page 34 of its Review:
Experience of the Government's incursions into the field of wage determination in recent years have made trade unionists wary of accepting Government participation in any form of incomes policy. There is genuine apprehension among trade unionists that any such Government participation would inevitably lead to the imposition of statutory limitations, rot only on voluntary collective bargaining but on trade union activities generally.
That is the authoritative voice of the T.U.C.
What is the attitude of the T.U.C. towards the prices and incomes policy? I do no: agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite who suggested that we want a free for all. That is not the view of the Trade Union movement. I do not agree that a voluntary system cannot operate, even within the context of the miserable, lousy, rotten capitalist system in which we live. The T.U.C. has consistently argued for a voluntary system and has opposed, all the way along the line, the use of statutory powers in this matter by the Government.
The T.U.C. set up a vetting system and even unions which were opposed to the Government's prices and incomes policy trotted along to the T.U.C. to have their claims vetted. The building workers did precisely that. They put their claim to the vetting committee and the T.U.C. said, in effect, "This is a fair claim, but we think that you should spread it over a longer period". The building workers replied, "If that is the view of the T.U.C, that is precisely what we will do". Thus, their claim was submitted on the basis of advice given by the T.U.C.; and the interim settlement for building workers was framed within the prices and incomes policy.
I accept that a minority of T.U.C. member unions have not wanted anything to do with voluntary agreements. However, the majority of unions affiliated to the T.U.C. have, all the way through, been prepared to accept such agreements. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend has left the Chamber. I hope that she will come back in a few minutes.
I want to deal with one or two points raised by my hon. Friend the Member

for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown). He made an excellent speech, but I did not agree with all of it. It was a speech that we have to take note of and to answer because it was the only challenge made to my hon. Friends and me this afternoon. He wanted to know why we were so dedicated to the Labour Party conference resolution, which appears almost word for word on the Order Paper in the names of my hon. Friends and myself. I make clear that we are not bowing to a great fetish. This resolution is included in the Amendment not because we honour all conference resolutions. Like my hon. Friends, during most of my life in the Labour Party I have found myself in opposition to most conference resolutions.
This resolution was on the agenda of the Labour Party conference because it had been passed overwhelmingly by the Trades Union Congress. We put it on the Order Paper of the House because it is the expression of the trade union and Labour movement throughout the country. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nine-tenths."] An overwhelming majority. That is why we believe the authentic voice of the Labour Party and the trade unions should be expressed in this House this afternoon. That is why we have put down the resolution and are supporting it.
My hon. Friend asked whether we want bank employees, civil servants, Post Office workers and others to be militant. I have never complained about workers being militant. I have always complained when they are not militant because they are more likely to get things when they are militant than when they acquiesce and lie down. We said that if this policy went through the workers would become more militant. Certain sections who have never been involved in industrial struggle would become militant as a result of this policy. This is what we warned about.
My hon. Friends appeared to suggest that it was because we were critical of the policy the workers reacted in this way. Ever since I have been in this House, since 1964, we have argued on Government policy on Vietnam. We were critical from 1964 to 1966, but we did not lose a vote because of criticism of the Front Bench on the Vietnam war. The average


worker considered that that was some-think in the realm of international politics which he did not know much about.
Now we have had the House of Commons putting Order after Order against trade unions getting increases in wages and only a handful of Orders on the question of prices.

Mr. Terence L. Higgins: Will the hon. Member tell us what Order on prices has ever been made?

Mr. Heffer: There was one on laundry prices. I said at the time that it was like closing the door when the horse had bolted.
The workers have understood this well. The policy that the Government have pursued has led to revolt by the workers. It has not been the criticisms which my hon. Friends and I have made of this policy. My hon. Friend asked how we determine the price, or the benefit to society, or the money that will be paid to an individual because of the particular job he does. I commented that Marx had worked this out a long time ago and my hon. Friend said that we should bring Marx up to date.
I do not want to go into Marxist economics, except to say that he pointed out that labour, like any other commodity, had a value attached to it and that the value was determined by the socially necessary labour time taken to produce that commodity. If one is a teacher or a doctor the socially necessary time to produce a teacher or a doctor is more than that necessary to train a joiner or a roadsweeper. That basically determines the value of the commodity, that is, the doctor, or whoever the commodity is. I say this in passing because it is sometimes essential to bear in mind that other people studied this problem a long time ago. So long as we have the capitalist system, unfortunately, that is the way in which the value of the commodity has to be determined.
The Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo), which has not been called, is quite right. It says that this policy
has hindered both legitimate trade union activity and economic expansion,
and
calls for the repeal of this legislation …

Obviously, my right hon. and hon. Friends will not repeal it, but I put this to the Government. I hope that there are no silly ideas floating about that once the Prices and Incomes Act has come to an end another will follow it, for that is the recipe for disaster. That would be the end of the line. I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends, "If that is the idea you have, forget it. Forget it now and take note of the attitude of the Labour Movement".

Mr. Stanley Orme: My hon. Friend says that he hopes his right hon. and hon. Friends will not pursue this policy. I think it extremely significant that they have not even had the courage to explain the Amendment on the Order Paper. That is an indication that it would be wrong for them to pursue this policy further.

Mr. Heffer: I was much encouraged by the fact that the Government were not prepared to defend their policy, except verbally and not by a written Amendment.
We do not want further legislation which would curtail basic trade union rights. Much of the White Paper is very valuable indeed. It is valuable because the trade union movement has been demanding that many of those things should be put into operation. But there are certain features of the White Paper—the conciliation pause or cooling-off period the question of interference in internal union affairs and forcing unions to have ballots, the attachment of fines to workers' wages—which the trade union movement will not tolerate nor accept.
That would be going in the direction in which hon. Members opposite want us to go. Immediately the White Paper came out they said that this was a step in the right direction, but did not go far enough. They spelled out what they want. They spelled it out in—another misnomer—" Fair Deal at Work ". They spelled out the whole policy of how the trade unions would be legally hog-tied with a battery of lawyers on every occasion when required. We are not having that. We have seen the experience in the United States. When there is an 80-day cooling-off period what happens? Dockers in New York have been on strike officially for more hours than our dockers have ever been on strike unofficially. Would


it improve industrial relations? I do not think so. The dockers of London stopped work for another half day merely because some of their colleagues were suspended. Imagine what they would do if their wages were attached. That is no way to improve industrial relations.
The Government should drop the prices and incomes policy as it now applies and allow the Trades Union Congress to operate a voluntary system. If the Government drop these provisions in the White Paper, the Labour Party will once more be a united party and will go to the country united and determined to carry though the programme of Socialism upon which the movement was founded

8.1 p.m.

Mr. John Page: In the part of his speech just before his peroration the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) spoke about what will happen at the end of this prices and incomes policy. He sounded like the song—
I'll never say 'never again' again".
they have to. Again and again the hon. Member and his hon. Friends said that they would not stand any further impositions of incomes policy, but again and again they marched into the Lobbies and supported the Government on it.
The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) said something with which I fundamentally disagree, namely, that we on this side speak for employers and he and his hon. Friends speak for trade unions. He said that, because of this, it would be impossible for there ever to be agreement on industrial relations between the two sides of the House. This is fundamentally wrong. I do not speak for employers. I speak for the people of Harrow, West and for what I believe is the good of the country as a whole. I believe that the hon. Gentleman is not blinkered only to think of a trade union attitude.
I also think that the hon. Gentleman perhaps forgot his experiences during the years before he entered the House, because surely the partnership between employer, employee and trade unions in businesses and companies is the normal thing. It is disputes which are abnormal. There are discussions and disagreements, but there is a partnership and there could prove to be an even stronger part-

nership. The hon. Gentleman was unwise to make that point as strongly as he did.
Hon. Members opposite have been in a terrible state in the debate. No two hon. Members have been able to present the same approach to the Motion, or to the first Government Amendment, or to the second Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo). The Government say that the policy is successful because it works and makes a vital contribution. The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Lomas), in a longish speech if all his interventions are added together, said that the policy is successful because it does not work. The signatories to the second Amendment, led by the hon. Member for Poplar, say that the policy is unsuccessful because it does work.
In a very good and touching speech, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) genuinely showed the attitude of a Labour Member who wanted to find a way to support the Government. His was the first speech on those lines that I have heard for many years. He said that the policy is unsuccessful because it is not properly understood. On many occasions I had to defend unpopular, and not necessarily always totally right, policies of my party when it was in power. One says, "The policy is not understood. The public relations are bad". However bad the turbot is on British Railways, public relations will never make it into a good dish. However hard the Government try with their public relations, they could not make their prices and incomes policy successful.
Many rude things have been said about the Motion. I rather like the hon. Member for Poplar's Amendment and, had it been on the Order Paper earlier, I would probably have signed it. I am totally in agreement with it. The only thing I would have like to have had explained is what is meant by "basic trade union rights". If the basic trade union rights are to fight for the long-term security of their members, free collective bargaining, a higher long-term standard of living, and the right to strike in accordance with contracts of employment, which is what I think the legitimate basic trade union rights are, I should be happy to add my name to the other 39 names.
We must be grateful to the Government for one aspect of their prices and incomes policy, because it has shown for ever that statutory control of incomes is totally ineffective and will never work. It means that no other Government for the next 50 years need even bother to think about it; it has been tried; it has been given a tremendous run by the right hon. Lady the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity, who has gone into the selling of it to her party and to the country with enormous gusto, but it has been a total and abject failure.
I believe that we are a low-wage, low-production society. Wages should be higher. Production should be higher. We are dogged by high taxation and economic unreality caused by Government interference in people's everyday lives. The most interfering aspect is probably this policy.
I want to examine why the policy has failed and what would have happened if there had not been this policy. The most depressing thing for the Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity and other members of his Department must have been this sentence in Mr. Aubrey Jones's Third Report:
It would seem to indicate that the average annual increase in earnings in recent years may have been just under 1 per cent. less than otherwise it would have been.
So Mr. Aubrey Jones, who has studied this question as closely as anybody could, believes that if we had not gone through the whole paraphernalia of this policy incomes might have been 1 per cent. higher. That, I believe, would be a good thing, too.
Mr. Aubrey Jones did not speak about the industrial disputes which have been caused and generated by this policy. Nor did he mention, as the hon. Member for Walton mentioned, the dangerous loss of good will in industry which has occurred ever since this policy has been operated. Another reason why it has failed and why I, as a simple businessman, believe that there was the 7 per cent. increase last year, is that after a lot of argument, television appearances, threatened industrial disputes and possibly cups of tea in St. James's Square, a national agreement of 3½ per cent. is reached. A few weeks later the same discussions go on at the plant or in the company, but with

less publicity, and after less discussion a further 3½ per cent. is agreed. That makes the 7 per cent.
If the right hon. Lady were to say that that is not how it works, I can say that it is. A business friend of mine told me the other day that in a situation such as I have outlined, he told the union official and shop stewards, "There has already been a national increase of 3½ per cent. The Minister says you cannot have any more". They replied, "It is not she who pays it. It is you. Give it to us." And he did.
I shall give the detailed reasons why I think that the machinery has failed. Paragraph 48 of the latest White Paper on prices and incomes and productivity says that where 100 workers are involved, or a smaller number if it would influence a larger total—but in general where fewer than 100 workers are involved—the increase does not have to be reported to the Ministry.
In the 1958 industrial census figures, which are the latest we have to go on, it is reported that 21 per cent. of employees in productive industry work for firms employing under 100 people. I do not believe that the employer or the unions in such a plant will say, "Perhaps we might have an influence on other companies in the same industry." They will go ahead and make their agreements. In the larger firms another 20 per cent. work in units of under 100 people, so in productive industry we have 40 per cent. excluded from those who report wage negotiations and agreements above 3½ per cent.
There are also the service, farming, catering industries, and so on. A figure is not available there, so my guess is as good as the Minister's. Let us take a figure of another 40 per cent. Therefore, I would say that about 40 per cent. of the total working population of 24 million are in units where it is unlikely that a wage increase of more than 3½ per cent. will be reported.
The policy has failed. How can we prove that, apart from the fact that the norm is nil, the ceiling 3½ per cent., and the actual increase 7 per cent.? The best proof was when the post offices in London, including that in the House, and in our cities were closed about three weeks ago. On the same day, 12,000 members of the National Union of


Bank Employees were queuing up outside the House to see their Members. The fact that the post offices were closed, and bank employees were up in arms and militant because of the Government's incomes policy, shows the depth of the failure of good will that their policies have led to.
The bank employees were not particularly happy to hear, though they had sympathy with the case, that Aubrey Jones's Report about the farm workers had been thrown out of the window while they were rendezvousing outside at half-past two that afternoon. Nor would the ordinary users of the post office services, who found themselves greatly inconvenienced, have been happy had they realised, as we in the House realised, that the Government said, "You can have 7 per cent.", but would not give the Post Office workers 5 per cent. and talk about the rest.
The strike was because the Government offered 7 per cent., but would not give 5 per cent., and would not talk. Of course, the next day it was settled, and now we discover that the whole of this great and damaging strike was justified only by a saving of, I think, £50,000 on what was originally requested by the employees and was originally acceptable to the Postmaster-General.
What is most significant in the debate, and the whole question of the policy, is what is to happen at the end of the year when the present legislation runs out. We are told that discussions are going on, and then perhaps in the autumn there will be legislation on the new White Paper "In Place of Strife", a helpful and useful step towards "Fair Deal at Work". We are happy that the Government have started to learn something.
But it would be totally against the interests of the country for the Government to feel that they must justify their past actions and relegislate for a fourth term of the prices and incomes policy. I hope that they will realise that that if they do this, and even if their supporters in the House go docilely into the Lobby with them, as they no doubt will tonight, this final dose will be the death-knell for the Government in the minds of thinking people in industry—trade unionists and employers alike.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: Having sat through this debate I am shocked at some of the ideas that the public must get of hon. Member's views on political economy. Speech after speech of hon. Members opposite seemed to suggest that workers from top to bottom in industry have an inalienable right to an annual increase in their wages or salaries.
The idea that, irrespective of whether we produce more or become more efficient, there must be an annual increase in our dividend, profit, salary, wage or professional fee, is the great disease from which we have suffered for many years. I am an engineer by profession, but to anyone who knows anything about political economy this is nonsense. There is no inalienable right to an increase in one's real income every year. It must be earned by society as a whole, by every man in whatever profession he happens to be. Speech after speech by hon. Members opposite has suggested that the incomes policy has failed, from some points of view because the workers have had too big an increase, and from others because they have not had enough.
What should determine everyone's increase in income and prosperity is what the individual produces and the energy that the group expend, in increasing productivity, whether it is a company or anything else. I wish that in our debates on economic matters more Members on both sides would bring home to the people that it is not Governments that create prosperity but those on the factory floor and the directors and managers of businesses. They create real prosperity, though Governments can help to create a climate for it and to see that there is social justice.
When I read the Motion, I was reminded of William Cobbett, an early 19th century Tory. His bitter complaint in "Rural Rides" was that, in this country, everyone was concerned and acclaimed success only with the planting of seeds from which they themselves collected the crops. No one was interested in planting trees which the next generation could enjoy.
The Motion says that, after three years, the incomes policy has failed. I could


understand criticism of the shortcomings of the policy and the suggestion of an alternative. But to say simply that after three years it has failed is hardly giving it a chance. Three years in the life of a nation is nothing. Cobbett, in his essay, attacked that section of society which was concerned only with the immediate crop. I am surprised that the followers of Disraeli and Cobbett are now expanding this doctrine of, "Grab what you can and never mind the seed corn". Yet this is what the Tory Party is telling our people. Indeed, our seed corn was being consumed from 1959 to 1963, and we know the cost. But the Opposition still advocate it.
The hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) always makes interesting speeches. Although we do not always agree with him, we all enjoy his speeches. He wants to reduce taxation. I certainly hope that a Government will be able to cut Income Tax by 4s. in the £ one day before I die. But hon. Members opposite also want to increase defence. They want more roads and more schools. They think that doctors and teachers are underpaid. If, therefore, they are to reduce taxation, the only way in which they can get all the money which they want to spend is by creating it or borrowing it from the monetary system. Do they want to increase the monetary supply?

Mr. Richard Body: Hear, hear.

Mr. Bence: I thought that they wanted to lessen the money supply.

Mr. Body: Hear, hear.

Mr. Bence: The hon. Gentleman says "Hear, hear" to both. The party opposite does not know where it is. Hon. Members opposite are confounded and confused by modern economy. They do not know whether Disraeli, Cobbett or Gladstone was right. They are the most confused ideological party ever to sit in opposition. The Motion shows it.
The speech of the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) was enjoyable and an excellent contribution, as always. He said that the statutory control of wages was unjust and would not work. What is the policy of the Opposition? If they get back into power, they will abolish statutory control over

wages but will introduce legislation to stop workers doing anything to try and get more money. They should make up their minds. First, they say that they are against statutory control of incomes; then they say that, if returned, they will pass legislation to prohibit groups of workers who feel unjustly treated from taking the necessary action to get justice in their wages.

Mr. Biffen: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us where, in any Conservative Party proposal for trade union reform, there is any provision that would have the extraordinary effect he claims?

Mr. Bence: I have read reports of the Tory Party Conferences. The Opposition want binding contracts on wages and, presumably, conditions, and to strike against a contract would be an offence.

Mr. Anthony Barber: It would be a breach of contract.

Mr. Bence: In other words, it would be an offence. Surely a breach of contract is an offence. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Very well. I will withdraw the word "offence" and will merely say that it will be a breach of contract. Supposing workers find a contract unjust. Under the Conservative proposals, they will be debarred by law from taking action to renegotiate it. But I suspect that the employer who suddenly gets a letter from his bank saying that his overdraft is £750,000 and that it must be reduced to £500,000 quickly will find every reason for breaking the contract and making 200 people redundant. I do not see how that sort of legislation is going to work.
I support the Government's prices and incomes policy for many reasons. I do not say that it is an absolute success. I am not a perfectionist. I do not expect the Government or management or the trade unions to be successful completely. But they improve. We all learn. We British are wonderful people for experimenting. We are liberals—with a small "1". There are very few Liberals with a capital "L" left. I believe that the character of our people is such that we will experiment and go forward carefully. The Government have been careful in going forward with their policy. I remind the House that the previous Government made several attempts to establish an incomes policy and, indeed, had some success.
Of course, the mechanics of the thing are difficult. There has been an incomes policy for many years, including under the last Government, but the present Government have devised mechanism to give it a chance. Let us see how it works. I was apprenticed in the engineering industry in 1917, which is a long time ago. I quickly discovered that 80 per cent. of what I produced was consumed by the investing section of the community and the higher income group.
In those days when industrial action was taken it was not to obtain higher wages, but to stop the owners pushing our wages down. Nevertheless, 80 per cent. of what we produced went to the high income group. When we tried to get a bigger income for our labour, we were getting it out of people with vastly higher incomes than ourselves. What is the position today? In every industry 80 per cent. of production is consumed by the next-door neighbour. We are a mass production society. One of my hon. Friends said that the standards of the workers have not improved. When I was an apprentice toolmaker I earned half a crown a week, began work at 6 o'clock in the morning and finished at half past five at night. I was working for Is. 8d. an hour in 1932 and could just afford a bicycle and four cigarettes a day.
When anyone tells me that the working people are not better off than they were in the 'thirties then I say that they are not living in this world.

Mr. Atkinson: I must make the point clear. What I was saying was that the Ford workers' standards of living have not shifted dramatically from 1939. Thirty years of capitalism has not brought about a great improvement.

Mr. Bence: When I finished my apprenticeship I was canvassed by the Ford people who were then at the Trafford Park. We were offered jobs as toolmakers at wages of 1s. 4d. an hour. In 1939 the National Defence contribution was introduced. The country was crying out for toolmakers. All over Europe there was the demand, in Germany and France as well as Britain. Wages went from 1s. 8d. to 2s. 8d. My hon. Friend quoted the very year when there was a great drive in this

country because we knew that our existence was threatened by Hitler.

Mr. Atkinson: My point is that 2s. 8d. an hour in 1939 would have given the hon. Member a higher standard of living than the rate he can now get in the motor industry.

Mr. Bence: My hon. Friend is wrong. I went to a rally in Wolverhampton in 1964 and the divisional organiser asked me if I was fed up with politics. I said:
No, not on your life, we will win this election.
He said that he would get me a job as a jig-borer—I was a jig-borer all through the war—at £42 a week in the Midlands. Let us not have any nonsense about this. Before the war the boat from Broomielaw to Rothesay was packed. It is not packed today, all those people are at the airports flying off to Majorca and Canada. The working people of this country have done well since 1939.
I would not go all the way with Mr. Macmillan who said that we have never had it so good, but we have had a fair deal in the last 20 years. As a Britisher and a Member of Parliament I will not stand by and hear people say that our standard of living has not been improved when it has improved considerably. Today we are producing washing machines, food mixers and all sorts of consumer durables, and when we push our wages up, we are asking our next-door neighbours to pay more, not just the rich. We are exploiting our fellow citizens.

Mr. A. Woodburn: Does my hon. Friend remember what happened to workers when the works closed down? How much did they get when they left?

Mr. Bence: Nothing, or, when they went for another job, that firm made an inquiry to find out why they had lost their first job There was no redundancy pay and very little sympathy from anyone when a man lost his job, not even from his wife, because money was short. Very few workers in the 'thirties had £200 or £300 in the bank.
I was talking with a bunch of workers in the local where I live, and they were playing the devil with me because of this campaign to increase motor taxation. One said to me:
I am paying enough now.


I asked him what his job was, and he told me that he delivered milk. Let us have a bit of reason in this. People are better off than they have ever been. This is a campaign to kid people that they are not. They are being kidded by the party opposite, and by my hon. Friend, although not seriously.

Mr. Atkinson: My hon. Friend must face the facts, he would agree that in 1939, skilled Ford workers were receiving £5 16s. a week. The equivalent today, under the new agreement suggested, is that the same workers should get £25 6s. 8d. I am suggesting that those two figures are about equivalent. As for the 30 years of capitalism, they have not helped the British worker.

Mr. Bence: Of course they have. There has been reference to 1939. But why start at 1939? Let us start at 1930.
My hon. Friend said that the Government should introduce a new policy. We do not want a new policy. I want a planned economy. I want the resources of this country to be planned. That is what I always wanted. We want to get rid of economic anarchy—this competitive jungle system. At that time, the Conservative Party also wanted to get rid of economic anarchy, of laissez-faire Liberalism. This was the argument between the Liberals and the Tories. The Tories wanted protectionism. They did not want free trade and economic competition. They wanted a regulated, controlled economy. So do we. The argument between us is about the best way of achieving it.
But the Conservative Party is so schizophrenic and divided in its views that it does not know where it is. It is courting the Liberals. It has even started to court our supporters. I warn those in my party not to be courted by the Conservatives. If they do, they will be in some trouble. I would not go so far as to say that they would get into the same trouble as the pals of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton). But they should be careful about being wooed by the Tory Party. If these people were to get full range, and if some of the ideas expressed by hon. Members opposite were to be implemented, it would be a tragedy, not only for working people, but for small busi-

nessmen. If the hon. Member for Oswestry had his way, not only would there be over 1 million unemployed, but many small businessmen would be in the bankruptcy courts.
When there is a request to curb the supply of money, the Government write to the joint stock banks asking them to do that. The banks reply, "Mind your own business". The Tory Party is telling the Government to curb the supply of money. But the merchant banks say, "Why should we? It would smash little businessmen". We must be careful about the language we use when we discuss these matters.
The point has been made several times that any attempt to put a statutory control on incomes has failed and must fail That is fantastic. All my life lawyers and solicitors have had statutory fees for property conveyance, and so on. They used to charge 7s. 6d. for writing a will. All their income is laid down by statute. There is a whole range of people—civil servants, nurses, doctors, teachers—whose incomes are statutorily controlled because they are employees of Government agencies.
Fancy the Black Watch and its officers having a meeting in Perth and deciding to send a deputation to the Secretary of State for Defence saying, "We are the famous Black Watch. We want another 10s. a week." Fancy the Royal Marines at Chatham sending a deputation saying, "We are the Royal Marines of the Chatham division. We have the best marines' band in Europe. We want another £1 a week". There would be civil war in the Army or in the Navy. These propositions are stupid. They are not worthy of the junior common room of the newest university. I have never since my school days heard such inept and controversial ideas as those put forward from the benches opposite tonight.
This is a new experiment; it has not been tried since the Middle Ages under the feudal system. It is the first attempt to bring some regulation into the distribution of incomes, which is the distribution of the product. That is what the distribution of incomes means: it means getting the product away, getting people to consume it and the regulation of its consumption. It is a new idea, and I congratulate the Government on tackling it. Of course it is unpleasant to those


who have been brought up in the tradition of free bargaining. I can accept it easily, because most of my free bargaining with the employers was not free bargaining to increase my wages but to bring them down or to save the war bonus of the First World War. Young fellows in industry today do not know what it is to have the threat of reduced wages hanging over them; they have got used to their annual increment.
I have much sympathy with skilled men in industry, pattern makers, machine tool fitters, turners, who have to serve an apprenticeship. They see fellows going into offices and getting regular annual increments. I know that there is resentment about this. There was resentment in the motor plant in which I worked that everyone except those who worked on the shop floor received an annual increment. We began to look for the annual increment, and if we did not get it we fought for it. It is not right for politicians to kid the people that there is no need for an incomes policy and at the same time to say that there is an inalienable right in their hands to get an annual increment.
The argument from the other side is that productivity cannot be measured. Of course it can. Increased productivity can be achieved in a factory at a given point, and the men at that point may be paid more for increased productivity but, because of bad organisation, bad management and the bad movement of materials, the benefit of that increased productivity may be completely lost before the product gets to the gate of the factory. Nevertheless, it is difficult to measure productivity overall.
I compliment my right hon. Friend the Minister and I compliment the Government on undertaking a difficult task. I admire the way in which they have stuck to their guns notwithstanding the opposition in the country, and I wish them every success.

8.43 p.m.

Mr. Keith Speed: One of the more unfortunate trends that has run through the debate is the constant assertion by hon. Members opposite that they are the sole guardians of the rights of working people. This I reject, since I think that I represent more trade unionists and industrial workers than anyone else who has spoken.
In speaking of the increase in the standard of living of workers, we do well to remember that what counts is the real personal after-tax income. On real personal after-tax incomes, the record is quite clear; they rose twice as fast under the previous Conservative Government, and this was without a statutory incomes policy, as under the present Socialist Government. This is what the whole argument is about.
The right hon. Lady, in her opening speech, did not lay too great stress on productivity, and this perhaps is just as well. The planning paper which, apparently, was leaked to the Financial Times in December, 1968—and as far as I am aware this leak has never been repudiated by the Government—made it clear that there was no justification for projecting forward a higher rate of growth and productivity than that which took place between 1961 and 1966. If the paper is correct, that was an annual average increase of about 3·1 per cent.
In addition, we are told that the economic growth for this year will be about 3 per cent. Therefore, if one had a substantial increase in productivity with an increase in production of only 3 per cent., this would argue that unemployment will rise substantially. It is already high, and I do not think that anyone wants to see it go higher.
What is more important is to ask what has been achieved. In its Third Report, the National Board for Prices and Incomes said that the average annual increase in earnings in recent years may have been just under 1 per cent. less than otherwise it would have been. The Under Secretary said last summer that that represented a reduction in demand of about £100 million a year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) said, it seems to be an extraordinary exercise, the tearing apart of and a traumatic experience for the Labour Party and a harmful effect on industrial relations, to achieve a reduction in demand of £100 million a year.
I would put it to the Under Secretary that very probably the pre-Budget boom, a year ago, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the tough Budget that we were to have and which did not come, was far in excess of £100 million worth of extra demand in the economy


and certainly outweighed the advantages of a statutory incomes policy.
We want to look further. I would be interested to know the effect upon the balance of payments of the statutory incomes policy. I have never seen it quantified. My guess is that, in the short term, the effect is minimal.
The right hon. Lady spoke about the wonderful position of the balance of payments last year. However, the balance of trade deficit last year was over £600 million, in a period when we had a statutory incomes policy. Looking purely at trade—and the incomes policy has an effect on the balance of trade rather than capital—I question the effect that it has had, and I think that hon. Members should be told.
I would put it to the hon. Gentleman that any beneficial effects that the statutory incomes policy has had are more than offset by the ban on the sale of arms to South Africa, or, if that is not to the liking of some hon. Members, our buying of American military aircraft or having to pay cancellation charges on the Fill. I contend that the foreign exchange payments in those transactions are in excess of any savings which we might have got from a statutory incomes policy.
We are also paying the price for the freeze introduced by the Prime Minister in July, 1966. Looking at the effects of that freeze of incomes and prices, and everything else that occurred, the White Paper on the Prices and Incomes Policy, Command 3235, said in March, 1967:
Internally, the measures have eliminated the excess pressure of demand, have freed resources for export production and other essential purposes, and have slowed down the rise in prices and incomes.
The Third Report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, published towards the end of last year, talking about the freeze, says:
The most likely explanation of what occurred in 1967 is the deferment into that year of wage increases which would have taken place in 1966, a deferment to a greater degree than took place after the pay pauses of 1948–49 and of 1962; the net increase in earnings in the two years of 1966 and 1967 could none the less be lower than it otherwise might have been. It is possible indeed that the more frequently a 'freeze' is imposed the greater is the subsequent militancy in claims. A 'freeze' of necessity does not

affect all wages and salaries equally; it can therefore add to anomalies and thus to later militancy. This later militancy can itself in turn aggravate the inflationary problem and thus invite a return to the very state of affairs from which escape had been sought.
This is one occasion when I agree with Mr. Aubrey Jones and the N.B.P.I. I am sure that this is one reason why the statutory incomes policy has been framed from that original decision of the Prime Minister in July, 1966 to introduce the freeze.
One point which should be gone into—perhaps the Under-Secretary will be able to give an answer to this matter when he winds up—is where the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes into the picture. In January last year the right hon. Gentleman said:
Unless firm restraint in increases in all forms of incomes becomes a reality, I shall be forced to take away the excess increases by extra taxation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th January, 1968; Vol. 756, c. 1790.]
Last year we had about £1,200 million worth of extra taxation, so I suppose that the Chancellor was keeping his word. What about the figures revealed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), figures known to all Members? Is this forecast a prelude to what we are to expect in the Budget in eight to 10 weeks' time? If the Chancellor is still standing by his statement of January last year, as night follows day, there must be many hundreds of millions of pounds to be taken out of the economy and out of the consumer demand in the Budget which he will be presenting in the near future. Either that, or he has gone back on that original statement, having done his job, as it were, in 1968, and now we can move forward and he is not prepared to soak up this increase in the forms of taxation of excess incomes. It would be interesting if the Government could clear people's minds on this matter.
My right hon. Friend referred to one matter on which there has been a crashing silence from the other side. I hope that the Under Secretary will be able to answer this point, because I have a personal interest. I refer to equal pay for equal work and the Ford agreement, to which the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) and the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) earlier referred.
I had the honour and pleasure of moving an Amendment on Report stage


of the Prices and Incomes Bill last year which sought to exclude from the Bill advances towards equal pay for equal work such as is now proposed in the Ford agreement. The Amendment was eventually defeated, but only after the right hon. Lady had promised that there would be consultation and that she was envisaging a seven-year timetable towards equal pay for equal work. The Government might have been in a happier position had my Amendment been accepted then. What I, the House and, indeed, the country want to know is how the Government view the equal pay provision in the Ford agreement. What criteria does it satisfy under the prices and incomes policy?
I understand that it is not a question of the men getting a smaller increase in wages; it is a clear equal pay for equal work agreement. Jolly good luck to the women. I am in favour of the agreement. But what criteria is it satisfying and will the Government give it their endorsement? If they do not endorse this agreement, which is a good one, it means that many of the statements of the right hon. Lady about equal pay for equal work must be suspect.
I remind the Government that they now have: six years and four months left to the end of this seven-year timetable when there should be full implementation of equal pay for equal work throughout the country. The Ford agreement is important in this matter. It depends very much on good will, not only by the people concerned at Fords, the unions and all the rest, but certainly on the backing of the Government. I shall be interested to see under what criteria of the prices and incomes policy they allow this agreement to be implemented.
What has been the price of this nonsensical self-delusion? I believe that is what the present statutory prices and incomes policy amounts to. First, we had the tragic and bitter experience of industrial relations last year. It was no good the right hon. Lady saying, "We have lost 4½ million working days or thereabouts ". These are provisional figures. As the Under-Secretary told me when I tabled a Written Question in January—I think that I am correct, but I know that he will put me right if I am wrong—provisional figures are nearly always up-dated. It may turn out that

nearly 5 million working days were lost, but I will not argue about half a million. It is no argument for the right hon. Lady to say that as part of the normal practical process under a Labour Government a strike involving 1½ million working days is natural.
Much more interesting in this context is the number of strikes started last year. If we exclude coal mining and quarrying we find that over 2,100 strikes were started, which, if my researches, are correct, is an all-time record in our history. This is the peak of a rising trend that has been accelerating over the last two or three years.
I do not pretend that the statutory prices and incomes policy is the sole reason for this, but it plays a major part in souring industrial relations and making many hitherto moderate and responsible unions, who have fought sensibly on behalf of their members, increasingly militant. Another factor that has not been mentioned is that when union officials are elected in this sort of atmosphere the more militant ones are successful. The responsible ones are going. All this is happening at a time when most people and most Members want to see some form of industrial relations reform.
The Government's proposals do not go nearly far enough. They are woefully lacking in many respects. We welcome the first faltering steps of the Government to implement this reform but we shall have to implement a much more comprehensive industrial relations reform. It is not a good time to do it when the whole field has been soured by non-senses of this sort.
Then there is the matter referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery). The disillusion of the electorate and the fact that the House, Parliament and politicians stand in low esteem is due to many reasons, one of them being that for domestic political purposes undue emphasis has been placed on the prices part of the prices and incomes policy. That was mentioned again by the right hon. Lady. When one examines the facts and figures one sees that increases in taxation by the Government have put up the cost of living by 6½ per cent. since they came to power and the charges made by the nationalised industries have risen by 25½ per cent.—much more than is normal in


other sectors—in the index of retail prices. The nationalised industries and taxation do things for which the Government are directly responsible. Both taxation and prices in the nationalised industries have risen much faster and have helped to push up the spiralling cost of living that we all face.
It is no good pretending that the prices, productivity and incomes policy has kept down prices. Anybody who is married and has to do the housekeeping knows that that is not so. Our people are, therefore, rightly sceptical about the promises made for this policy. We know the excuses that are made. We debated them many times in Committee last year, when the Bill was going through. It is one more of the things that has added to the disillusion of politicians and the contempt of the Government.
Many people—voluntarily or involuntarily—are now probably breaking the law. I understood from the Under-Secretary of State that all firms with 100 workpeople and above should notify all the agreements they arrive at to the Department of Employment and Productivity. Sometimes up to 20,000 agreements are negotiated in one day. I wonder whether this notification has been going on or whether, all too often, a nod and a wink has been given and people have not bothered to notify the Department. I am sure that that is so.
There are many more constructive and sensible policies which would help to solve this problem, but time does not allow me to go into them. The incomes policy is the one piece of credit that the Government have left with the international bankers, to whom we owe so much money. That is why the Government are clinging to it like a fading actress clings to her rouge and false eyelashes. The sooner the curtain falls on this Act, the better it will be for all of us.

8.59 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Barber: The right hon. Lady the Secretary of State made some extraordinary observations about the parentage of the Motion moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr). Of course it is common form these days for Ministers to put up Aunt Sallies and

then knock them down, but the right hon. Lady this afternoon achieved the rather unusual feat of not merely putting up an Aunt Sally but then getting herself knocked down by it as a result of the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Macleod).
I think that this has been—I hope that the Under-Secretary will agree—a very useful debate. The arguments for and against the control of incomes by statute have been deployed many times, and, from the very beginning, the Conservative Party has been resolutely and consistently opposed to it. We opposed the introduction of compulsory powers under Part IV of the 1966 Act, the implementation of Part IV in October of that year, the 1967 Act and the third Act, passed last year. On the other hand, the Government, with the support of the majority of their back benchers, have with equal consistency, voted again and again to hold wages down by law, which is the purpose of the legislation—

Mr. John Fraser: Mr. John Fraser (Norwood) indicated dissent.

Mr. Barber: I will quote something said by senior Ministers in a few moments to justify what I say.
The fact is that the longer the Labour Government cling to these powers, the more apparent it becomes that their exercise is not only grossly unfair but also largely ineffective.
No one who has held any responsibility in an economic Department can doubt the importance of the maintenance of a proper balance between the rise in incomes and the rise in output. I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) said about this. Furthermore, so far as I know, there is not an industrialised country anywhere in the world where the Government does not concern itself with this balance. It does so because there is hardly any greater social injustice than runaway inflation. So I start by saying that to pretend that the trend of incomes is no concern of the government is naive and superficial economic nonsense.
I will mention just one example to justify what I believe. It is of course ridiculous to pretend that any Chancellor can ignore the likely trend of incomes


when framing his Budget, but of course an incomes policy can take a variety of forms. It can take the form which has been devised by the present Labour Government, of legal compulsion. It can take the form which exists in the United States of voluntary guidelines, or it can take the form of a policy of increasing competitive processes or changing the structure of collective bargaining. I agree with some of my hon. Friends who have congratulated the right hon. Lady on the steps which she intends to take in industrial relations in due course. We do not believe that they go far enough, but she should have credit for her courage in going that far.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith) referred to the Prime Minister in the context of this debate and was right to do so. Over the years, successive Conservative Governments pursued an incomes policy, but it was unthinkable that we should ever introduce legislation of the kind now on the Statute Book, for reasons which were stated with such typical candour by the present Prime Minister when he said—I quote these well-known words again because they are highly germane to the argument—
Once you have the law prescribing wages I think you are on a very slippery slope. It would be repugnant to all parties in this country.
Those were the words of the present Prime Minister and he was, of course, absolutely right. But that was said during the last General Election and four months later he did precisely what he had promised that he would not do.
We have said many times that the great mistake of this Government is in elevating their incomes policy to the dominant—indeed, to listen to some of the speeches of right hon. and hon. Members in support of Government policy one would think that it was almost the only—factor of economic policy. The result of this over-reliance on incomes policy has been that, when it has failed, it has failed with a vengeance, with all the problems flowing from that failure.
The facts speak for themselves. The Government first decided to hold down wages by law—I use that phrase advisedly—in the summer of 1966, 14 weeks after the General Election and after the Prime Minister had said on television what I

have just quoted. They did this because between April, 1965, and April, 1966, hourly earnings had risen by 9·6 per cent., the steepest rise for 14 years. In other words, the one factor which the Government had placed foremost in their economic thinking had failed disastrously. So the Prime Minister changed his tack and started on what only four months previously he had picturesquely described as the very slippery slope which was repugnant to all parties. We are still on that slope, thanks to the support which he has been given time and again by Labour Party back-benchers in the House of Commons.
For reasons which I shall give, a statutory incomes policy was not only, in the Prime Minister's words, repugnant to the British people, but doomed to failure from the beginning.
I have said before in an economics debate that the economic aims of any Government are four: economic growth, price stability, full employment and a satisfactory balance of payments. That was the aim of the Conservative Government. It is the aim and objective of the present Government. But this Government is the first ever to have achieved the remarkable distinction of failing in all four objectives at the same time. One might almost call it "the uneconomic miracle ", but that is by the way. In the pursuit of these objectives, the trend of incomes is only one factor, although, I agree, a very important factor. But the Government's aim should be, by their overall management of the economy, to create conditions under which the rise in incomes is broadly in line with the rise in output.
The first reason why we believe that the Government should abandon these compulsory powers is that they have manifestly failed. What has been the Government's objective in the past 12 months? In the now classic words of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs—I am not surprised that he does not listen to these debates any more; he used to speak in them—he told the House in March last year, when no doubt the right hon. Lady agreed with him, and I assume that she agrees with him now:
… it follows that personal consumption will need to fall…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1968; Vol. 761, c. 616.]


I can be even more specific. I quote the Department of Economic Affairs' Progress Report for April last year:
The measures contained in the Budget aim to cut back personal consumption by about 1 per cent. a year below the level in the second half of 1967—or by about 2 per cent. in all from the level that it might otherwise have reached".
That is the Government's policy. That is what they set out to do. They were to use the statutory control of incomes to achieve it. That is the first point which we must bear in mind.
The principal weapon for achieving the objective of cutting back people's standard of living was, under penalty of law, to hold down wages so that people would be worse off. The sentence which I have quoted from the "Economic Bulletin" can mean nothing else. But thanks to the ingenuity of British managers and trade unionists, and, if I may say so, to the incompetence of the right hon. Lady and her fellow Ministers, the Socialist Government have failed even in this unique venture.
What has been the outcome of all the ill-feeling and trouble which has been engendered by the policy the right hon. Lady has been pursuing? The right hon. Lady gave us some figures this afternoon of wage rates from March to December, 1968. I wonder why she chose March to December. That happened, of course, to suit her case very well. She was trying to show that the rise had not been as great as all that in wage rates, but why start in March? We have had the incomes policy controlled by Statute for getting on for three years now. Why not take the whole of last year, the figures which practically every economic and financial commentator has been using in the serious articles they have been writing to try to get to the bottom of the troubles with which we are dealing?
Last year basic weekly wage rates went up by 6·9 per cent., the largest increase since the index began 12 years ago; in manufacturing industry by 8·8 per cent., the largest increase since the present index began 12 years ago; and hourly wage rates went up by 7·1 per cent. and were again the largest increase for 12 years. All the bureaucratic paraphernalia which the right hon. Lady has operated with such panache has failed.
The increase in wage rates last year was double the 3½ per cent. ceiling on which the Government set such store.
I quote again the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. In last year's Budget debate, he said:
…3½ per cent. is …
I hope the right hon. Lady will listen because this is particularly important and relevant—
 the maximum figure for settlements which in our view is consistent with fully maintaining the competitive advantage of devaluation.
This was not the right hon. Lady's tale this afternoon. She said—I took down her words—" It is not the purpose of our policy to hold down wages while prices rise "—which is absolute nonsense. She said that this is not the policy of her right hon. Friends, but in March last year the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs said:
It is …a necessary condition of the economic adjustment which we have to make that incomes should rise more slowly than the cost of living over the next year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1968; Vol. 761, c. 621–22.]
Who is right? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] Does she not accept what her right hon. Friend said? It is the direct contrary of what she told the House this afternoon. One does not expect two senior members of a Cabinet to take diametrically opposed views on something as important as this. May I give a little advice to her? This is why she gets into so much trouble with a section of her party. They know that one of them is not telling the truth. They do not know who to rely on. But that is for her to sort out.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), in a typically pungent, incisive and admirable speech, reminded us that the right hon. Lady had said that this policy was a vital part of the economic strategy. She may argue that the situation would have been far worse if she had not had these powers and, if that were true, I suppose it would have been an argument for retaining the legislation once again this autumn.
But even that argument does not hold water. As the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Roy Hughes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mr. Speed) pointed


out, even the Prices and Incomes Board has concluded that the effect on earnings of the Government's statutory control of incomes has been less than 1 per cent. My hon. Friend gave some figures which seemed to show that this would have had a very minor effect, or a comparatively minor effect, on the balance of payments.
Throughout the past year the right hon Lady and her friends have plodded doggedly on down what the Prime Minister called "the slippery slope" and what the right hon. Lady calls, rather more attractively, "socialisation of the wages sector." But what has she achieved? As my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) and Meriden have pointed out, she has achieved a loss of good will and engendered bitterness in the trade union movement and a massive increase in the number of days lost in strikes—last year of 4,692,000, twice as many as in 1964. Even this figures takes no account of the number of days lost through the shortage of supplies as a result of strikes.
I saw the right hon. Lady laughing then. I am not surprised that she was laughing, because I think she may have been rather amused recollecting something that she said off the cuff in her opening speech, which I want to refer to. Talking about this great increase in the number of days lost through strikes last year, she gave what I think must surely become a classic excuse to all trade unionists to go on strike. She said that the figure, of 4½ million days lost in strikes was misleading because it included 1½ million days lost as a result of the engineers' strike "as part of their negotiating strategy ". Now we know, and so will every trade unionist in the future, that it should not be included in the statistics if it is part of the negotiating strategy.

Mr. Atkinson: My right hon. Friend was absolutely right on the question of the 1½ million days. The engineering employers were dragging their feet and refusing to talk realistically about wages to engineers for 18 months. It was the employers who forced the trade unionists to take one-day action to make the employers talk realistically about wages. If anyone was to blame for that 1½ million lost days, it was the employers.

Mr. Barber: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that on that occasion the employers were doing their best to conform with the policy laid down by the Labour Government.
If hon. Members opposite, including the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson), believe that the statutory control of wages has been successful, they must recognise that it is failing now. All the indications are that the incomes policy is breaking down. Those are not my words. They are taken from a serious article in Monday's Financial Times. Those words are true, and it is failing because the right hon. Lady is caving in all along the line and, by so doing, making a mockery of the legal powers which she is purporting to operate.
Consider the Post Office settlement, as to which the right hon. Lady made the ridiculous claim that it was related to productivity. Apart from the incredible inter-departmental bungling, one thing is absolutely clear—that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Lady had allowed the Postmaster-General at the outset of the negotiations to offer the terms which were finally offered the strike would never have taken place. We know what happened. The Government thought that they could bluff their way through it. They thought that they could rely on the traditional loyalty of the Post Office workers. But their bluff was called, and so they capitulated. One day's strike and they capitulated; and every trade union leader knows that the settlement was way outside the incomes policy.
Then there was the case of the farm workers, who got an increase well above the 3½ per cent., which the Prices and Incomes Board found to be quite unjustified by the rules. She can laugh. So will every trade unionist throughout the country. They know perfectly well that one has only to be tough, one has only to threaten, and the right hon. Lady or her Cabinet colleagues cave in. Everybody knows that that is what they will do.
What about the doctors and dentists? I am delighted that the Government are to pay them a substantial increase. They fully deserve it. Maybe we can now encourage a few more of them to stay in this country. But anyone who pretends that the doctors' rise is consistent with the Government's incomes policy should see a psychiatrist. The increase blatantly


ignores the incomes policy. If the right hon. Lady thinks that this is just some Tory observation, let me read her the headline in Friday's Daily Mirror on an article by Mr. Alan Law, its industrial correspondent. Under the headline:
No Freeze On Pay Rise For Doctors
the article says:
Although the increases blatantly ignore the incomes policy, the Prime Minister declared yesterday that the Government was ready to make an early start on talks aimed at putting them into effect.
Later it says:
'' They "—
other union leaders—
will clearly be outraged at the Government's inconsistency.
Of course they will be.
I have given only a sprinkling of illustrations of where the Government, for political reasons, to curry favour or to avoid trouble, have driven a coach and horses through the incomes policy criteria which were to be enforced with the full panoply of the law. But the Government will never take on the big battalions. As we have seen, it is only the small fry who always get the stick.
If the Government have driven a coach and horses through their own criteria, this is nothing compared with the extent to which those criteria are being flouted with impugnity throughout the length and breadth of Britain. If the employers of millions of men and women want to pay more than 3½ per cent., there is not the slightest problem about their doing it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) pointed out that any union prepared to hold the country to ransom will always force the Government to abandon their criteria. I have mentioned the Post Office settlement. One can also refer to the railway settlement and to the London Docks tally clerks, who had a 15 per cent. increase on basic rates. The right hon. Lady made a very interesting comment on that settlement. She said that she did not refer it to the Prices and Incomes Board because, "We did not wish to prejudice the general progress in the docks." What a reason! That was right outside the policy. That means not only that if one goes on strike as part of one's strategy it does not count, but that anyone who is to take the right hon. Lady at her word can in future pay

more than 3½ per cent. as long as it is done because one does not wish to prejudice the general progress in one's industry.
A source of much greater inequity arises from the widespread evasion of the Government's statutorily backed policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West reminded us that the right hon. Lady has laid down that normally no claim or award need be notified unless it affects more than 100 workers. I do not know how many such firms there are, but there are certainly at least 50,000, and probably more than 100,000. Such companies can ignore with impugnity the ceiling of 3½ per cent. that the right hon. Lady has laid down, and many are doing just that. It is going on all over the country all the time. The right hon. Lady and her horde of officials have not the remotest idea of what is happening, and the employers and union representatives concerned have nothing to fear.
Then there is the farce of back-dating. I shall not go into the details, because we had a very good example with the municipal busmen. They were told three times that their claim was postponed at the behest of the right hon. Lady or her predecessor—I cannot remember which—and then after a year it was back-dated. Just after Christmas 19 local authorities gave to the municipal busmen—77,000 of them—a year's back pay of between £80 and £100 each. What nonsense this all is. It is not surprising that Mr. Larry Smith, the National Bus Officer of the T. and G.W.U. commented:
This drives a tank right through the prices and incomes policy. It vindicates the attitude the union national officers have taken over the standstill, and indicates the stupidity of the Government's action in stopping the rises in the first place.
So one could go on. There is what the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs described as the "hole in the ceiling" for productivity cases. Some hole! As my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton explained, there is in practice not the slightest difficulty in some small company cooking up a "phoney" productivity bargain—and this is what they do.
The right hon. Lady referred specifically to building workers and told us that she has set up a working party. Does she have any idea as to how she may be able to enforce her ridiculous


legal criteria on the small builder who, in order to keep his men, pays them over the odds? Everyone knows that there is absolutely nothing she can do about it because no one tells her and she cannot find out. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer)—I am sorry I did not hear the whole of his speech—pointed out that, in the private building industry, there is not the slightest difficulty in getting round the 3½ per cent.
The Under-Secretary of State told us in May last year that this policy was of great importance. The Chancellor six months later said that the policy was of central and crucial importance. Yet these Ministers, who pose as honest men, in their mid-term manifesto made not a single even passing reference to the key question of wages policy. Yet it is supposed to be central to their economic policy.
Is it that the right hon. Lady and her right hon. and hon. Friends have such contempt for the intelligence of their own party workers that they thought that the omission would go unnoticed? If the right hon. Lady thinks that to oppose the holding down of wages by law is, in the terms of the Amendment, "partisan criticism", does that also go for the opposition of the Labour Party conference by 5 million votes to 1 million? My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton referred to the T.U.C. conference and I think that the right hon. Lady said, 'even the T.U.C. "at one moment. Was it" partisan criticism "for the T.U.C. conference to oppose her policy by nearly 8 million votes to 1 million?
Bearing in mind that the trade union movement now opposes her policy by an overwhelming majority, does she still stand by her words, spoken only 14 weeks before the T.U.C. gave its verdict? She told the House:
… we all recognise—and the Government recognise—that an incomes policy cannot work if the whole concept is repugnant to the trade union movement and if it has to be imposed by the use of compulsory powers.
Does she still stand by those words? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] If her words have any meaning, does she still think that the policy will not work in those conditions? If the right hon. Lady is not prepared to reply, perhaps

the Under-Secretary of State will. He himself used even stronger words in the same debate, when he said:
'' It cannot and will not work unless we have the overwhelming, general, voluntary support of the trade union movement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st May, 1968; Vol., 760, c. 306–417.]
We are entitled to know the answer.
The Government also ask their supporters in the Amendment to vote for what they call their
…constructive and socially just economic strategy.
This is the strategy which has saddled the nation with £3,000 million additional overseas debt; this is the strategy which has led to the devaluation of the £; this is the strategy which led last year to the largest trade deficit for 23 years and to the highest summer unemployment for 28 years. In addition to this misery, this economic strategy which they ask their hon. Friends to approve, led last year to the largest increase in taxation in our history. If that is what hon. Gentlemen want let them vote for it. We are against it.

9.30 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mr. Roy Hattersley): I begin by answering the two questions which the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) put to me in tones which might have led some of his hon. Friends to believe that they were questions difficult to answer. First, he asked whether we stand by what my right hon. Friend and I, and the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, and many others have said about the essentially voluntary nature of the prices and incomes policy. Of course we do. If the policy was rejected physically and positively by the trade unions and the country it could not survive.
I take an example. If the agreement concerning the building industry, of which my right hon. Friend is properly proud, had been rejected by the building trade unions, that agreement in its amended form could not have gone forward. By definition, if the time arrives when the sanctions of the policy have to be used on an immense scale, when the criteria of the policy can only be supported with the backing of sanctions, when the powers become something


which are not used in exceptional circumstances, but need to be used invariably, then the policy cannot work. That is what we always said and will continue to say about the policy's essentially voluntary nature.
The right hon. Gentleman then asked me about the supposed mystery of the 3½ per cent. ceiling and the relationship between prices and earnings during the last year. It is a mystery which he and his right hon. Friends have tried to probe before. I will not weary him or embarrass myself with a long quotation from a speech I made on this subject in April of last year. I will remind him of what the Prime Minister said on 23rd May on exactly this point. [Interruption.] I am sorry if this is about to bore right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. Perhaps they might care to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman knew about the Prime Minister's explanation, and chose not to give it to the House, or whether his researchers into HANSARD have not been sufficiently thorough to turn the point up.
What the Prime Minister said on 23rd May was in response to a question suggesting that the conflict drawn to the House's attention tonight was a real conflict. The Prime Minister made the point very clear and definite. He said:
Given an even minimal increase in productivity … a very substantial increase in living standards is possible this year, but it is dependent on productivity…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd May, 1968; Vol. 765, c. 862.]
What my right hon. Friends have said consistently is that were all wage negotiations conducted on an across-the-board basis, unrelated to productivity criteria, undoubtedly during the last year there would have been a fall in real living standards. If, on the other hand, a substantial number of productivity bargains were negotiated, then there could be a real increase in living standards.
It is the second and more happy alternative which has been the case. [Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen who were here earlier will remember that my right hon. Friend drew the attention of the House to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition was complaining about that very statistical point.
The second alternative has turned out to be the case, and it is that alternative which I shall use as a justification and a substantiation of my certainty that the incomes policy has been a success, and will continue throughout the year to be a success.
Throughout the day we have been asked to measure the success of our policy against yardsticks manufactured by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I wish to make it clear that I do not intend to follow all the hares that they have set off. I will not pursue allegations of our having broken promises which we never made, of failing to reach targets which we never set and falling short of estimates which we never gave.
Let me give two examples of what I mean; what the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) described as our policy towards the lowest paid was quite wrong. Further, his general description of what the prices and incomes policy is intended to achieve was equally wrong. I take those two examples to explain, at any rate to my hon. Friends, how the Motion and the way in which it has been argued by hon. Gentlemen opposite is misconceived.
The right hon. Member for Mitcham said that the avowed purpose of the policy was to help the lowest-paid worker strengthen his position. We have never said anything half as total as that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If hon. Gentlemen opposite will bear with me for a moment I will quote to them what we have said. We said that we intend—and we have always intended this—that the more rigorous application of the policy should be spared the lowest paid.
I mention with some embarrassment what I said on the Report stage of the Measure. I said that the lowest paid would be insulated from an admittedly hard policy. I said that that was the sum of what we were claiming. In other words, it was not the avowed purpose to help the lowest paid as such but to insulate the lowest paid from the rigours of the policy. [HON. MEMBERS: "What is the difference?"] The difference is that under the policy we are making sure that the lowest paid—negotiating wage increases through the normal processes and receiving wage increases as the result of those means, or receiving Agricultural Wages Board awards—automatically


receive an increase up to the ceiling of the criteria simply because they are the lowest paid. That is, in itself, a justification. It is, in itself, an exception to the policy. That is what we always said we would do and that is what we have done.
Indeed, we have done more than that. My right hon. Friend said many times during the early stages of the proceedings on the Prices and Incomes Act that one of our hopes is that, as part of any general settlement, the lowest paid in an industrial group would be given priority and that within the ceiling a general increase would be so constructed that the lowest-paid recipients would get rather more than the 3½ per cent.
That, too, has happened. I take as an example the engineering agreement, where the increase in the minimum rate is substantially greater than 3½ per cent., yet the overall agreement was within the policy. The only conclusion one can draw is that those engineering employees who are the lowest paid and who are on the minimum are benefiting by a larger proportion than the higher paid in that industry. That was the intention of our policy. It is the intention, and it is being carried out.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: As the hon. Gentleman is commending the prices and incomes policy, and is saying that it is working well, does he mean that he will renew it in the autumn?

Mr. Hattersley: That is a more reasonable question than the one posed by the hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Speed), who asked me to make the Chancellor's Budget statement during my reply to the debate.

Mr. Barber: Since the hon. Gentleman has made that point, would he say that he agrees with his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who said that when the new legislation ran out it would need to be a voluntary policy? His right hon. Friend went on to say that he knew the trade union movement too well to believe that it could be otherwise. He added that by the autumn of 1969, when the current powers expired, we would have had legislation concerned with wages for 3½ years and that that was long enough. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that, and, if so, is that Government policy?

Mr. Hattersley: I know that quotation well. It occupied two days discussion in Committee. If the right hon. Gentleman will have a little patience he will find that, before the end of my speech, I will talk about the future—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I hope that that is some consolation to him.
What I am saying concerns the lowest-paid workers. When the Bill passed into law, we asked for the right to subject wage claims concerning the lowest-paid workers to the National Board for Prices and Incomes to ensure that those proposed increases were genuinely for that category of worker. We promised that when that proof was obtained the wage increases for the lowest paid workers would go through. Both promises have been fulfilled. That is why 27 Wages Councils Orders have gone through during the life of the Act. That is why we rightly allowed the full award of the Agricultural Wages Board to be paid.
Since right hon. and hon. Members opposite have been so anxious to criticise that award, let me put some points to them about it. According to the criteria accepted by he House, and which form the general policy for prices and incomes, there is a 3½ per cent. ceiling A 17s. increase for the agricultural workers was an apparent breach of it. In those circumstances, the Government could have done three things. They could have rigidly applied the letter of the policy. We know what right hon. Members opposite would have said about that. Because of our sympathy for the agricultural workers, we could have simply capriciously and unilaterally set the policy aside. We know what right hon. Members opposite would have said about that.
Our third possible course, which we took, was to examine the application of general policy to this very special case. The confirmation that it was a very special case resulted in the response which I hope my right hon. and hon. Friends would have expected of us, namely, the payment of the full amount because of the exceptional circumstances which make the workers in that industry, not only the lowest paid, but outstandingly the lowest paid. If there needs to be or should be a vindication of the social aspect of the policy, it is surely that.
I remember very well that during the Committee stage of the Bill some of my hon. Friends, supporting our proposals on the lowest paid, said that they could not and would not believe that the Labour Government would turn down an increase for agricultural workers. I remember that when that increase was first announced a few of my hon. Friends wondered whether their hopes at the time of the Committee stage had been misplaced. As we subsequently proved, their hopes were not misplaced. Their faith was justified. It remains the major and substantial vindication of the lowest-paid worker criteria in the Act.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that in cases in which he has given way to claims from the higher-paid workers he has automatically increased the cost-of-living burdens on the lowest-paid workers?

Mr. Hattersley: Of course I do. I agree that whenever one has given way, if given way is the phrase—it is not a phrase which I like—or whenever a wage increase goes through, one is making a contribution to all sorts of unfortunate economic factors if it is not related to productivity. But, as I hope to show, we must face the realities of the policy rather than its theories.
One of the realities of the policy which I hope right hon. and hon. Members opposite will begin to get to grips with is that it was never intended to hold down wages while prices rose. It was certainly never intended to do that with the maximum use of legal sanctions. The real achievement of the policy has been encouraging wage increases based on productivity and more effective working practices. The real achievement of the policy has been to shift the basis of wage negotiations from damaging general increases to increases based on productivity objectives without using legal powers and legal sanctions.
The Leader of the Opposition will very often hear references to what he said on 25th November, 1968. His complaint then was that earnings had gone up by 8 per cent. and that prices had risen by only 6 per cent. He described it as another condemnation of the prices and incomes policy. If our objectives—

Mr. Barber: Mr. Barber rose—

Mr. Hattersley: That quotation has been made several times today. My right hon. Friend referred to it. None of the Leader of the Opposition's right hon. Friends thought it necessary to correct what my right hon. Friend said—I suspect because it was in all ways an accurate quotation.

Mr. Barber: The hon. Gentleman is wrong in his construction of the quotation. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was pointing out that the object of the exercise was to make sure that incomes should rise more slowly than the cost of living. Those were the words of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. It was to that that my right hon. Friend was referring, and he was right and justified in doing so.

Mr. Hattersley: If the right hon. Gentleman asked me to give way to correct the quotation, he ought to correct it rather that argue about it. The words which his right hon. Friend used were exactly those that I used. I now intend to comment on them.
Had it been our intention simply to hold down wages, the accusation of the Leader of the Opposition would have been an appropriate one. In fact, there was a time when the incomes policy was intended to hold down wages. That was during the standstill and the period of severe restraint. During that time, we did it rather well. We held down wages to an increase of about 2·1 per cent., and we held down prices to hardly more than that. But the new phase of the policy—certainly that presided over by my right hon. Friend—has always contained the possibility of substantial and continual wage increases so long as they are related to improvements in productivity.
Since the right hon. Member for Mitcham originally made the comparison, it is interesting in this context to compare the full 2½ years of our policy with the 2½ years which began with a previous July when what was called the Selwyn Lloyd pay pause began—[Interruption.]

Sir Douglas Glover: We are not debating that.

Mr. Hattersley: One hon. Member groans, and the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) says, "We are not


debating that". The comparison was made originally by their right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham.
The right hon. Member for Altrincham asked why figures were not supplied for the full period of the prices and incomes policy. I shall do that and compare it with another 2½ years of a prices and incomes policy.
Certainly, during our 2½ years, earnings have risen rather faster than during the previous period. Certainly, during our 2½ years, prices have risen slightly faster than during the previous period. But the important factor, or the first of the two important factors, is the relationship of those two to each other—the relationship of annual price rises to annual wage rises. During the 2½ years following the Selwyn Lloyd pay pause, earnings increased about 1·8 per cent. faster than prices. During the 2½ years which began with 20th July, 1966, wages increased 2·5 per cent. faster than prices. Comparing the two periods, the real increases in wealth have been almost 50 per cent. greater per annum in terms of prices versus wage increases.

Mr. Heffer: I hope that my hon. Friend will not bother too much arguing against right hon. and hon. Members opposite, but will concentrate more on answering some of the points raised by hon. Members on this side of the House.

Mr. Hattersley: I suppose that my hon. Friend thinks that I have special obligations to him because he is one of my supporters—[Laughter.]
I wanted to go on to say that the only criterion which can be used to judge the effectiveness of the 2½ years which followed the Selwyn Lloyd pay pause was its ability to hold down wages, because that was the only object of the policy. The criteria which must be used in part to judge the result of the 2½ years that followed our policy is its ability and success in promoting productivity.
Let us look at those figures. In the most recent year for which figures are available, gross domestic product per head under our policy has improved by 4·8 per cent. For a corresponding year under right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, it increased by about a quarter of that level. Those two figures, 1·1 per cent. versus 4·8 per cent., are the vindication of my right hon. Friend's contention

that as long as productivity increases, wage increases go ahead proportionately.

Mr. Emery: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hattersley: No.
Having said that, I do not for a moment minimise the part that the policy has to, and must, play in minimising costs and limiting demand. We have heard constant references today to the figure of 1 per cent. estimated in the summer by the National Board for Prices and Incomes as the figure by which effective demand is reduced as a result of the policy. I am open to correction, but I believe that was first invented by the right hon. Member for Mitcham, who said that that was the maximum figure for which we could hope, and his estimate was that it would be a considerably smaller amount.
I make no comment whether that 1 per cent. is accurate. But I say that the Opposition are wrong to minimise the importance of a 1 per cent. reduction. A cut from effective demand of £100 million in a year is a substantial contribution to our economic strategy. Certainly, by my standards, cutting it from effective demand by an incomes policy is an infinitely more palatable way than other methods which might be put forward. It is certainly better than cutting it from public spending and certainly better—and I suspect that right hon. and hon. Members opposite agree—than putting it on taxation.
When right hon. and hon. Members opposite consider not only the merits of the policy, but the desirability of it, they must also decide the desirability of any alternative which may be put in its place.

Mr. Emery: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hattersley: No.
Many accusations have been made against the Government this afternoon. I will deal with only three more before I say a word about the future of the policy. First, to conjure up from the air some general theory that because of the incomes policy industrial relations have deteriorated is a very unscientific estimate.

Mr. Emery: It is true.

Mr. Hattersley: The hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) says that it is true.
Hardly anybody has any figure relevant to such a contention, a contention which it is almost impossible to prove or disprove.
About the best figure which can be produced to give an answer one way or the other is the percentage of disputes in any one year resulting from wage claims. Presumably it is wage claims that the prices and incomes policy affects and presumably it is in that area where it has soured industrial relations.
Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will, I am sure, be relieved to know that last year the average number of disputes arising from wage claims, as a proportion of the total number of disputes, was about average. The year before it was substantially below average, and the year before that it was also substantially below average. An examination of any figures that can be produced, inaccurate as they are, though the best figures which can be created, suggests and, indeed, confirms that the incomes policy has in no way injured or soured industrial relations.
Finally—

Sir C. Osborne: Sir C. Osborne rose—

Mr. Hattersley: Finally—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. Mr. Hattersley.

Mr. Hattersley: Finally, I turn to the question of the future. Before turning to that question—[Interruption.] The question of the future of the Government is easy. There is a question of the future for right hon. Gentlemen to answer. We know that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite would abolish the statutory powers and we understand that they would abolish the National Board for Prices and Incomes. We know that they believe in some general regulation of incomes policy. What we must ask them is whether those creative things which have been the result of the policy, those things which have come from the Board irrespective of wage limitation—I refer to things like "Guidelines for Productivity Bargains", proposals to local authority manual workers and how improvements can be made in local authority efficiency and pay without extra burdens

on the ratepayer—would be done by a board set up by them.
For us, the answer can be very clear. A year ago the Prime Minister laid down the criteria according to which the prices and incomes policy in its statutory form might or might not be abandoned, and I say again this evening that the decision about the future of the prices and incomes policy must be taken in the light of the necessities at the end of this year. Clearly, the Government cannot, and will not, at this stage undertake to abandon a policy which might be necessary in the interests of the nation. Any hon. Gentleman below the Gangway who assumed from the wording of the Amendment that this was the beginning of our intention is mistaking what we have in mind.
The wording of the Amendment is intended to convey our contempt for the rather shoddy political manoeuvre into which right hon. Gentlemen opposite have entered this afternoon, and my hon. Friends should assume nothing but contempt for it. Our point of view is clear and perfectly specified. The need for a prices and incomes policy in a statutory form will be assessed towards the end of the year. If some powers remain necessary, it would be irresponsible of us not to take those powers, but I say again that, for my part, there is no doctrinal wish to see a continuation of the statutory powers. I do not in any way see them as a virtue in themselves. I see them as a hard necessity in a difficult situation, and the assurance which I can give the House this evening is that we shall face the hard necessity if required.
I can assure the House that, while, if we accept nothing else we accept that there is a substantial element of unpopularity in the operation of the policy, unlike hon. Gentlemen opposite, we shall not regard that as an appropriate criterion of whether it should go on or not. The criterion is whether the economy and the country need it. Obviously, our hope is that they do not, but if the country and the economy need it it must be renewed, and that is the only promise and the only undertaking that I can enter into about the future.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Sir Harmar Nicholls rose—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. Sir Harmar Nicholls—[Interruption.]

Sir Harmar Nicholls: It is clear, from the noise, that the House can see through the double talk of the hon. Gentleman. He came here to sooth his back benches, but admits that the policy will be renewed in the autumn. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Sir Harmar Nicholls.

Mr. Roy Roebuck: On a point of order. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am trying to find out why the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Roebuck) is addressing me. Mr. Roebuck—[Interruption.]

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 296, Noes 230.

Division No. 69.]
AYES
[9.59 p.m.


Albu, Austen
Doig, Peter
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Driberg, Tom
Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)


Andereon, Donald
Dunnett, Jack
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Archer, Peter
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Ashley, Jack
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Hunter, Adam


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Eadle, Alex
Hynd, John


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Edeiman, Maurice
Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Jackson, Colin (B'h'se &amp; Spenb'gh)


Barnett, Joel
Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)


Baxter, William
Ellis, John
Janner, Sir Barnett


Bence, Cyril
English, Michael
Jeger, George (Goole)


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Ennals, David
Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n&amp;St. P'cras, S.)


Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)
Evans, Albert (Isilngton, S. W.)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)


Bidwell, Sydney
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)


Binns, John
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Bishop, E. S. Blackburn, F.
Faulds, Andrew
Jones. Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Fernyhough, E.
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Finch, Harold
Jones, T Alec (Rhondda, West)


Booth, Albert
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Judd, Frank


Boston, Terence
Fletcher. Rt. Hn. Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
Kelley, Richard


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Fletcher, Raymond (likeston)
Kenyon, Clifford


Boyden, James
Foley, Maurice
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)


Bradley, Tom
Foot, Rt. Hn. Sir Dingle (Ipswich)
Lawson, George


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Leadbitter, Ted


Brooks, Edwin
Ford, Ben
Ledger, Ron


Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)
Fowler, Gerry
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Fraser, John (Norwood)
Lee, Rt. Hn. Jennie (Cannock)


Brown, Bob (N 'c'tie-upon-Tyne, w.)
Freeson, Reginald
Lee, John (Reading)


Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Gardner, Tony
Lestor, Miss Joan


Buchan, Norman
Garrett, W. E.
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Ginsburg, David
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, W.)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Lipton, Marcus


Cant, R. B.
Gregory, Arnold
Lomas, Kenneth


Carmichael, Neil
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Loughlin, Charles


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Luard, Evan


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Lianelly)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)


Chapman, Donald
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Mabon, D. J. Dickson


Coe, Denis
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
McBride, Neil


Coleman, Donald
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
McCann, John


Conlan, Bernard
Hamling, William
MacColl, James


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Harman, William
MacDermot, Niall


Cawshaw, Richard
Harper, Joseph
Macdonald, A. H.


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
McKay, Mrs. Margaret


Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Mackie, John


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Hattersley, Roy
Maclennan, Robert


Dalyell, Tam
Hazell, Bert
McNamara, J. Kevin


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis
MacPherson, Malcolm


Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Heffer, Eric s.
Mallalieu, J. P. W.(Huddersfield, E.)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Henig, Stanley
Manuel, Archie


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Siretford)
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Mapp, Charles


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hilton, W. S.
Marquand, David


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Hobden, Dennis
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard


de Freitas, Rt Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Hooley, Frank
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy


Delargy, Hugh
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Maxwell, Robert


Dell, Edmund
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)
Mayhew, Christopher


Dempsey, James
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert


Dewar, Donald
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Mendelson, John


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Howie, W.
Mikardo, Ian


Dickens, James
Hoy, James
Millan, Bruce


Dobson, Ray
Huckfield, Leslie
Miller, Dr. M. S.




Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)
Taverne, Dick


Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George


Molloy, Will am
Price, William (Rugby)
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George


Moonman, Eric
Probert, Arthur
Thornton, Ernest


Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Tinn, James


Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Randall, Harry
Tomney, Frank


Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Rankin, John
Tuck, Raphael


Morris, John (Aberavon)
Rees, Merlyn
Urwin, T. W.


Moyle, Roland
Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W.
Varley, Eric G.


Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederickz
Rhodes, Geoffrey
Walnwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Murray, Albert
Richard, Ivor
Walden, Brian (All Saints)


Newens, Stan
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy
Wallace, George


Oakes, Gordon
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)
Watkins, David (Consett)


Ogden, Eric
Robertson, John (Paisley)
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor:


O'Malley, Brian
Robertson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)
Weitzman, David


Oram, Albert E.
Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Wellbeloved, James


Orbach, Maurice
Roebuck, Roy
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Orme, Stanley
Ross, Rt. Hn. William
Whitaker, Ben


Oswald, Thomas
Rowlands, E.
White, Mrs. Eirene


Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Sheldon, Robert
Whitlock, William


Owen, Will (Morpeth)
Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.
Wilkins, W. A.


Padley, Walter
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Paget, R. T.
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Palmer, Arthur
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Silverman, Julius
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Park, Trevor
Skeffington, Arthur
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


Parker, John (Dagenham)
Slater, Joseph
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Small, William
Winnick, David


Pavitt, Laurence
Snow, Julian
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Spriggs, Leslie
Woof, Robert


Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonsh re, W.)
Wyatt, Woodrow


Pentland, Norman
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael



Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Mr. J. D. Concannon and


Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
Mr. Charles Grey.




NOES


Alison, Michael (Barksion Ash)
Crouch, David
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Crowder, F. P.
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)


Astor, John
Cunningham, Sir Knox
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Currie, G. B. H.
Harvie Anderson, Miss


Awdry, Daniel
Dalkeith, Earl of
Hastings, Stephen


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Dance, James
Hawkins, Paul


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Hay, John


Bainiel, Lord
Dean, Paul
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Digby, Simon Wingfield
Heseltine, Michael


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Higgins, Terence L.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Doughty, Charles
Hiley, Joseph


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
HiIl, J. E. B.


Biffen, John
Drayson, G. B.
Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin


Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Holland, Philip


Black, Sir Cyril
Eden, Sir John
Hordern, Peter


Blaker, Peter
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Hornby, Richard


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Emery, Peter
Howell, David (Guildford)


Body, Richard
Farr, John
Hunt, John


Bossom, Sir Clive
Fisher, Nigel
Hutchison, Michael Clark


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Iremonger, T. L.


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Fortescue, Tim
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Braine, Bernard
Foster, Sir John
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)


Brewls, John
Galbraith, Hn. T. G.
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Gibson-Watt, David
Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)


Bromley-Daven port, Lt.-Col. SirWalter
Giles, Rear-Adm. Morgan
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Jopling, Michael


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith


Bryan, Paul
Glover, Sir Douglas



Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Glyn, Sir Richard
Kaberry, Sir Donald


Bullus, Sir Erlc
Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B,
Kerby, Capt. Henry


Burden, F. A.
Goodhart, Philip
Kershaw, Anthony


Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)
Goodhew, Victor
Kimball, Marcus


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nalrn)
Gower, Raymond
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)


Carlisle, Mark
Grant, Anthony
Kirk, Peter


Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Grant-Ferris, R.
Kitson, Timothy


Cary, Sir Robert
Gresham Cooke, R.
Knight, Mrs. Jill


Channon, H. P. G.
Grieve, Percy
Lane, David


Chichester-Clark, R.
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Langford-Holt, Sir John


Clegg, Walter
Gurden, Harold
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry


Cooke, Robert
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)


Cordle, John
Hall-Davies, A. G. F.
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)


Corfield, F. V.
Hamilton, Lord (Fermanagh)
Lloyd, Ian (p'tsm'th, Lartgstone)


Costain, A. P.
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Loveys, W. H.


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
McAdden, Sir Stephen




MacArthur, Ian
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Peel, John
Summers, Sir Spencer


Macleod, Rt. Hn. lain
Percival, Ian
Tapsell, Peter


Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Peyton, John
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


McNair-Wilson. Patrick
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)


Maddan, Martin
Pink, R. Bonner
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Pounder, Rafton
Temple, John M.


Marten, Neill
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Tilney, John


Mawby, Ray
Prior, J. M. L.
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Pym, Francis
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Maydon, Lt.Cmdr. S. L. C.
Quennell, Mies J. M.
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Vickers, Dame Joan


Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Waddington, David


Miscampbell, Norman
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Monro, Hector
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Wall, Patrick


Montgomery, Fergus
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Walters, Dennis


Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Ridsdale, Julian
Ward, Dame Irene


Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Weatherill, Bernard


Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Robson Brown, Sir William
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Murton, Oscar
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Williams, Donald (Dudley)


Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Royle, Anthony
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Neave, Airey
Russell, Sir Ronald
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Scott, Nicholas
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Scott-Hopkins, James
Woodnutt, Mark


Nott, John
Sharples, Richard
Worsley, Marcus


Onslow, Cranley
Silvester, Frederick
Wylie, N. R.


Orr, Capt. I. P. S.
Sinclair, Sir George
Younger, Hn. George


Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)



Osborn, John (Hallam)
Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Speed, Keith
Mr. Jasper More and


Page, Graham (Crosby)
Stodart, Author y
Mr. Reginald Eyre.


Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Main Question, as amended, put:—

The House divided: Ayes 289. Noes 230.

Division No. 70.]
AYES
[10.13 p.m.


Albu, Austen
Coleman, Donald
Foley, Maurice


Allaun, Frank, (Salford, E.)
Conlan, Bernard
Foot, Rt. Hn. Sir Dingle (Ipswich)


Anderson, Donald
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)


Archer, Peter
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Ford, Ben


Ashley, Jack
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Forrester, John


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Fowler, Gerry


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Dalyell, Tam
Fraser, John (Norwood)


Bugter, Gordon A. T.
Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Freeson, Reginald


Barnett, Joel
Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Gardner, Tony


Baxter, William
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Garrett, W. E.


Bence, Cyril
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Ginsburg, David


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.


Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)


Bidwell, Sydney
de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Greenwood, Rt. Hn Anthony


Binns, John
Delargy, Hugh
Gregory, Arnold


Bishop, E. S.
Dell, Edmund
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)


Blackburn, F.
Dempsey, James
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Dewar, Donald
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)


Booth. Albert
Dickens, James
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.


Boston, Terence
Dobson, Ray
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Doig, Peter
Hamling, William


Boyden, James
Driberg, Tom
Hannan, William


Bradley, Tom
Dunnett, Jack
Harper, Joseph


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)


Brooks, Edwin
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith


Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)
Eadie, Alex
Hattersley, Roy


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Edelman, Maurice
Hazell, Bert


Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Healey, Rt Hn Denis


Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Heffer, Eric S.


Buchan, Norman
Ellis, John
Henig, Stanley


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
English, Michael
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Ennals, David
Hilton, W. S.


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Hobden, Dennis


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Hooley, Frank


Cant, R. B.
Faulds, Andrew
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas


Carmichael, Neil
Fernyhough, E.
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Finch, Harold
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)


Chapman, Donald
Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
Howie, W.


Coe, Denis
Fletcher, Raymond (likeston)
Hoy, James




Huckfield, Leslie
Mayhew, Christopher
Roebuck, Roy


Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Ross, Rt. Hn. William


Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)
Mendelson, John
Rowlands, E.


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Mikardo, Ian
Sheldon, Robert


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Millan, Bruce
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Hunter, Adam
Miller, Dr. M. 8.
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)


Hynd, John
Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Silkin, Rt. Hn John (Deptford)


Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Jackson, Colin (B'h'se &amp; Spenb'gh)
Molloy, William
Silverman, Julius


Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Skeffington, Arthur


Janner, Sir Barnett
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Slater, Joseph


Jeger, George (Coole)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Small, William


Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'bn&amp;St. P'cras, S.)
Morris, John (Aberavon)
Snow, Julian


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Moyle, Roland
Spriggs, Leslie


Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Murray, Albert
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael


Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Newens, Stan
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Oakes, Gordon
Summerskilll, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Judd, Frank
Ogden, Eric
Taverne, Dick


Kelley, Richard
O'Malley, Brian
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George


Kenyon, Clifford
Oram, Albert E.
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George



Orbach, Maurice



Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Orme, Stanley
Thornton, Ernest


Lawson, George
Oswald, Thomas
Tinn, James


Leadbitter, Ted
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Tomney, Frank


Ledger, Ron
Owen, Will (Morpeth)
Tuck, Raphael


Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (newton)
Padley, Walter
Urwin, T. W.


Lee, Rt. Hn. Jennie (Cannock)
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Varley, Eric G.


Lee, John (Reading)
Paget, R. T.
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Lestor, Miss Joan
Palmer, Arthur
Walden Brian (All Saints)


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Chartes
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Park, Trevor
Wallace, George


Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N,)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Watkins, David (Consett)


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Lipton, Marcus
Pavitt, Laurence
Weitzman, David


Lomas, Kenneth
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Wellbeloved, James


Loughlin, Charles
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Luard, Evan
Pentland, Norman
Whitaker, Ben


Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
White, Mrs. Eirene


Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.
Whitlock, William


McBride, Neil
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)
Wilkins, W. A.


McCann, John
Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Mac Coll, James
Price, William (Rugby)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


MacDermot, Niall
Probert, Arthur
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Macdonald, A. H.
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Randall, Harry
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Mackie, John
Rees, Merlyn
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


Maclennan, Robert
Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W.
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


McNamara, J. Kevin
Rhodes, Geoffrey
Winnick, David


MacPherson, Malcolm
Richard, Ivor
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Mallalieu, J. P. W.(Huddersfield, E.)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Woof, Robert


Manuel, Archie
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy
Wyatt, Woodrow


Mapp, Charles
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)



Marquand, David
Robertson, John (Paisley)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)
Mr. J. D. Concannon and


Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Mr. Charles Grey.


Maxwell, Robert






NOES


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Brinton, Sir Tatton
Cunningham, Sir Knox


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Bromley-Davenport, Lt. Col. SirWalter
Currie, G. B. H.


Astor, John
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Dalkeith, Earl of


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Dance, James


Awdry, Daniel
Bryan, Paul
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Dean, Paul


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Bullus, Sir Eric
Digby, Simon Wingfield


Balniel, Lord
Burden, F. A.
Dodds-Parker, Douglas


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)
Doughty, Charles


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Carlisle, Mark
Drayson, G. B.


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward


Bitten, John
Cary, Sir Robert
Eden, Sir John


Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel
Channon, H. P. G.
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)


Black, Sir Cyril
Chichester-Clark, R.
Emery, Peter


Blaker, Peter
Clegg, Walter
Farr, John


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Cooke, Robert
Fisher, Nigel


Body, Richard
Cordle, John
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Bossom, Sir Clive
Corfield, F. V.
Fortescue, Tim


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Costain, A. P.
Foster, Sir John


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Galbraith, Hn. T. G.


Braine, Bernard
Crouch, David
Gibson-Watt, David


Brewis, John
Crowder, F. P.
Giles, Rear-Adm. Morgan




Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Glover, Sir Douglas
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Glyn, Sir Richard
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'dfield)
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Ridsdale, Julian


Goodhart, Philip
Loveys, W. H.
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey


Goodhew, Victor
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Robson Brown, Sir William


Gower, Raymond
MacArthur, Ian
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)


Grant, Anthony
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Grant-Ferris, B.
Macleod, Rt. Hn. lain
Royle, Anthony


Gresham Cooke, R.
Maomillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Russell, Sir Ronald


Grieve, Percy
McNair-Wilson. Patrick
Scott, Nicholas


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmund")
Maddan, Martin
Scott-Hopkins, James


Gurden, Harold
Marples, Rt Hn, Emest
Sharples, Richard


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Marten, Neil
Silvester, Frederick


Hall-Davies, A. G. F.
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Sinclair, Sir George


Hamilton, Lord (Fermanagh)
Mawby, Ray
Smith, Dudley (W'wick&amp;L'mington)


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Maydon, Lt-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Speed, Keith


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Stodart, Anthony


Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Miscampbell, Norman
Summers, Sir Spencer


Harvie Anderson, Miss
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Tapsell, Peter


Hastings, Stephen
Monro, Hector
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Hawkins, Paul
Montgomery, Fergus
Taylor, Edward M.(C'gow, Cathcart)


Hay, John
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Temple, John M.


Heseltine, Michael
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Higgins, Terence L.
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Tilney, John


Hiley, Joseph
Murton, Oscar
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Hill, J. E. B.
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
van Stranlienzee, W. R.


Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin
Neave, Airey
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Holland, Philip
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Vickers, Dame Joan


Hordern, Peter
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Waddington, David


Hornby, Richard
Nott, John
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Howell, David (Guildford)
Onslow, Cranley
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Hunt, John
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Wall, Patrick


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian
Walters, Dennis


Iremonger, T. L.
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Ward, Dame Irene


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Weatherill, Bernard


Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Page, John (Harrow W.)
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)
Williams, Donald (Dudley)


Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Peel, John
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Jopling, Michael
Percival, Ian
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Peyton, John
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Woodnutt, Mark


Kerby, Capt. Henry
Pink, R. Bonner
Worsley, Marcus


Kershaw, Anthony
Pounder, Rafton
Wylie, N. R.


Kimball, Marcus
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Younger, Hn. George


King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Price, David (Eastleigh)



Kirk, Peter
Prior, J. M. L.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Kitson, Timothy
Pym, Francis
Mr. Jasper More and


Knight, Mrs. Jill
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Mr. Reginald Eyre.


Lane, David
Ramsden, Rt. Hn, James




Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

Resolved,

That this House notes that Her Majesty's Opposition is more concerned with partisan criticism of Her Majesty's Government's productivity, prices and incomes policy than with the promotion of a constructive and socially just economic strategy.

Orders of the Day — NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES

Mr. John Smith to be a Member of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries.—[Mr. O'Malley]

Orders of the Day — ADULT NON-VOCATIONAL CLASSES (CHESHIRE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McBride.]

10.24 p.m.

Dr. M. P. Winstanley: I am very grateful for this opportunity to raise the question of adult non-vocational classes. I am particularly concerned with the arrangements for cuts about to be made by the Cheshire county education authority, but it is a matter of more than purely local importance, which has implications for us all. I am also glad to have the opportunity of bringing forward on the Adjournment a subject in which you, Mr. Speaker, have great personal interest and of which you have extensive professional knowledge.
We are concerned with the proposed cuts by the Cheshire County Education Authority but it would be right to go through the history of the matter briefly and refer to the cuts made by the Government and announced by the Prime Minister on 16th January, 1968. He referred to a cut of £100 million in education expenditure over a period of two years. I am aware that the Under-Secretary of State may say that this is not really a cut and that the then Secretary of State for Education and Science, the right hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Gordon Walker), referred to a "planned reduction" in the rate of growth. Nevertheless, to those on the receiving end, it seems to be a cut.
It is right to make clear that all the blame, if blame there is, does not necessarily lie on the Cheshire authority. In the area, the population growth has averaged about 7 per cent. per annum. The school population has doubled since the war. The present arrangements for rate support grant are very far from being helpful, so the authority has its special problems.
I am constantly pressing the authority on various matters, such as primary schools with classes approaching 60 pupils, or with outside sanitation, and so forth, and it would be irresponsible of me not to recognise that, in the context of having to make cuts in planned ex-

penditure, the authority has some difficulty in deciding where to place the burden. Nevertheless, in proposing these cuts, it is surely asking adult education to bear a disproportionate share.
However, the Government have much responsibility for the situation and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will use his influence with his colleagues to do something to ensure that the economic cuts will be moved away from education to certain other sectors of the economy which could bear them better. As Minister for Sport, and with Cup Final tickets at his disposal, he will have some influence with his colleagues. I hope that he will use it.

Mr. Grant-Ferris: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government are much more to blame than the Cheshire authority and that, having studied what it could do to meet the Government's requirements, it appears to be meeting them by the best method it can find? That is not to say that I disagree with the hon. Gentleman altogether. I agree with him that the Government must accept responsibility for the cuts.

Dr. Winstanley: I must disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The total cuts add up to just over £1 million and consist of cuts in various educational activities. But £600,000—more than half—is to be cut from adult non-vocational education. This is not a proper division. It is wholly disproportionate.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must relate what he is saying to some Ministerial responsibility.

Dr. Winstanley: I will do so closely and rapidly. On 13th January, the authority published Circular No. 69/6, in which it outlined the cuts it would make in response to the requests made by the Department of Education and Science. These were to fall into various sections but in particular I am concerned with items 29, 30, 31 and 32.
Item 29 says:
Cessation for one year of all non-vocational evening institute classes.
True, it is followed by a note which says that it is suggested that where a group of students, not less than 16 in number, combine together and are prepared to pay


the full cost—it says a payment of not less than £9 paid in advance—it might be possible for the classes to continue.
Item 30 says:
Savings by cancellation of courses and other means in the seven colleges of further education.
Item 31 says:
Cancellation of issue of permits to Cheshire residents to attend part time day and evening non-vocational courses provided at colleges not maintained by the Cheshire authority.
Item 32 says:
Suspension of grant to W.E.A. and University extra-mural classes.

Mr. Trevor Park: I agree with the stricture the hon. Gentleman is making about the decision of the Cheshire authority. Would he not also agree that where the entire future of the W.E A. provision is being threatened by the attitude of a local authority, it lies within the power of the Minister to put the matter right by increasing his Departmental grant to W.E.A. districts? Would he put that point to the Minister?

Dr. Winstanley: I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will have the opportunity to say that he will do something of this kind, or at least he will do something equivalent. These items of savings amount to £158,000, £240,000, £190,000 and £4,750, making a total of nearly £600,000 out of total cuts of just over £1 million.
They were not final proposals. They were being considered, but they caused alarm and despondency among the people who attend these classes or teach in them. Following that I had a letter from the Director of Education, Mr. Armitage, and I should like to pay tribute to him. Since he has taken over as Director he has worked as hard as he can to meet the very special difficulties which Cheshire has. He has a particular difficulty here, and I hope that he will meet it in a better way than it has so far been met.
He sent me a letter to say that they were proposals. Now they have been agreed, at a meeting on 27th January. I was sent another letter on 6th February, and then another which I understand has been distributed among hon. Members and a copy sent to the Minister, on 10th February, explaining

that it might not be necessary to suspend these non-vocational adult educational classes but that it might be possible to continue them if people were willing to pay, and adding that a working party was sitting.

Mr. Stanley Orme: This Adjournment debate has had some effect, and I have personal experience because my wife is attending a non-vocational course which was suspended, and which has since been reinstated. We owe the hon. Gentleman congratulations for the endeavours he has made.

Dr. Winstanley: I am grateful. It is true that it seems that the attitude of the county council has shifted recently.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. After all, it is the hon. Gentleman's Adjournment debate.

Mr. Carlisle: May I make the point that it was said to me last week by the Director of Education in Cheshire that these plans were being considered long before the hon. Gentleman was concerned.

Dr. Winstanley: The hon. Member must know that I raised this matter a fortnight ago, and the notice I referred to is one which came out some weeks ago. Surely we are concerned in doing what we can to ensure that some kind of adult non-vocational educational classes continue on a basis acceptable to those who take part, rather than in scoring cheap party political points. I am astonished at the hon. Member for choosing to make one.
It is my view that if the original decision to suspend these classes were carried out it would be contrary to the spirit and letter of the 1944 Education Act, Section 41 of which says:
… it shall be the duty of every local education authority to secure the provision for their area of adequate facilities for further education, that is to say:—
(b) leisure-time occupation, in such organized cultural training and recreative activities as are suited to their requirements, for any persons over compulsory school age who are able and willing to profit by the facilities provided for that purpose."
Surely to suspend classes completely must be contrary to the provisions of the Act. The education authority would not then


be discharging its duties. The point is arguable, I agree, if the county education authority arranges for classes to be held on the basis that those who attend pay the full cost or, in some cases, in excess of the cost so that they are providing the county education authority with a profit, but I cannot see how that can be in accordance not merely with the spirit but with the letter of the Act.
If it transpires that the education authority is not able to continue these classes, I hope that the Minister will address himself to the question whether the authority would be in breach of the 1944 Act. If there is merely a reduction in the facilities provided, I hope that he will ensure that it is not a major reduction. I suggest that even a small reduction would be in many ways extremely inadvisable.
These classes serve many functions, including very important social functions. I have received scores of letters, as I am sure have other hon. Members, from people who rely on these courses, for example old-age pensioners who write to me to say that at one time they felt that they were out of the community and that it was only through attending such classes that they were brought back into the community. I have letters from people recently arrived in the district who felt that they did not belong to the district until they attended the adult non-vocational education classes, which brought them into the life of the community. Many people who have been sick, suffering from nervous conditions, have found that attending these classes restored them to useful life.
In my professional experience in practice I have found that I have been able to do more good for many patients by getting them to take part in these activities than by pushing out bottles of medicine and tablets. I was telephoned a short time ago by a Miss Evison, not from my constituency but from Mossley, who said, "I left school when I was 12 years of age. I have had practically nothing by way of education out of the State, for I went straight to work in a cotton mill. Now I am 64 and I go to these classes." At last she is getting some benefit from our provision of education. Is she not entitled to it?
This is a matter of great importance. In this connection I would remind hon. Members of an interesting quotation from a letter written by Sir Winston Churchill to Sir Vincent Tewson when the latter was Secretary of the T.U.C. Sir Winston wrote:
… There is, perhaps, no branch of our vast educational system which should more attract within its particular sphere the aid and encouragement of the State than adult education.
I do not think that it is attracting very much aid and encouragement at the moment in the County of Cheshire. Sir Winston continued:
How many must there be in Britain, after the disturbance of two destructive wars, who thirst in later life to learn about the humanities, the history of their country, the philosophies of the human race, and the arts and letters which sustain and are borne forward by the ever-conquering English language? This ranks in my opinion far above science and technical instruction, which are well sustained and not without their rewards in our present system.
Sir Winston said that education of this kind
demands the highest measures which our hard-pressed finances can sustain".
This is a point of view which I support and which I hope all hon. Members support.
I am not unmindful of the difficulties of Cheshire County Council, but I believe that in saying that non-vocational classes should virtually be closed down, they are placing a disproportionate burden on adult education. I remind the Minister that once these classes are stopped, the teachers will have gone, and we shall not get them back again. I also remind him of what is happening in my constituency which borders other contiguous education authorities. People are going into Manchester to get accommodation addresses in order to enter courses in another authority's area. The saving may, therefore, not be as great as it seems. Indeed, will there be a significant saving? The vocational classes have to continue, so that there will still be lighting and heating and a caretaker to provide in the schools. The saving may not be as great as is supposed.
I am astonished to find in some districts that the number of people taking part in these courses is 20 per cent. of the community; in other words, as high as one in five in certain districts. This


is not a minority interest. It is of great educational and social importance. Therefore, I implore the Minister to do what he can to enable Cheshire to keep this service going as fully as it possibly can.

10.40 p.m.

Sir Edward Boyle: I will detain the House for only two minutes on this subject.
I agree with the hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) on one point. I have constantly said in this House that education has suffered disproportionately from the Government's economy measures during the past year. I repeat that this evening.
I am sure that we ought to remember the acute problems caused for local education authorities by the restrictions on the rate support grant. This is something much more severe than many imagine. It has caused problems for Cheshire, Kent, and many of the best authorities in the country.
None the less, I am sure that many in this House feel anxious for two reasons. First, because of the part that adult education plays in providing a second chance for many of our citizens, not least those who came, as it were, before the Robbins Report. We are not just talking about courses; we are talking about people.
I must admit a special interest. I am a National Vice-President of the W.E.A., which has been mentioned this evening. I believe that in present circumstances, with the great problems that face local authorities financially, it is inevitable that authorities should take steps to make a number of courses more self-supporting. I think that Government supporters are unrealistic if they do not recognise that this is the consequence of their policies. I should be very sorry if there had to be any large-scale total suspension of a number of courses. I am sure that many Members in all parts of the House feel that, too.
I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Runcorn is right. Cheshire is aware of the conflicting considerations. I hope that it may be possible, partly as a result of this debate, to have more courses made more self-supporting, but not the total suspension which may originally have been planned.

10.42 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Denis Howell): I am sure that the House is grateful to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) not only for raising this issue in the interests of Cheshire, but in the interests of adult education generally throughout the country. That is the view that we take.
My reply to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) and to the hon. Member for Cheadle concerning some of their comments about Government economic policy—I obviously cannot deal with all the points in the 10 minutes or so available to me—is that there are 168 education authorities in this country, and the overwhelming number do not find that they have to make proposals such as this. This is a matter of which we must take account.
I was pleased that the announcement I made the other day about the setting up of a new Committee under Sir Lionel Russell to look into the future of adult education was welcomed on all sides in the House. One reason why we have established that Committee is because the Government want to take this opportunity of reaffirming their faith in adult education as a service within the totality of education in this country.
The facts given by the hon. Member for Cheadle are true. I do not want to reiterate them, but they are causing concern everywhere. The National Institute of Adult Education, knowing that this Adjournment debate was on tonight, rushed round a letter to me by hand in which it said that it supported the protest that was to be made.
It is true that the total cuts that Cheshire proposes amount to over £592,000, or 60 per cent. of the cuts in the whole of its education service. I do not want to beat about the bush. My view of the proposals is that they are unbalanced, harsh and deplorable, and certainly contrary to the spirit of the Education Act, 1944.
In pursuance of the judgment that the Secretary of State has to form on these matters in future, we should like to know a lot more about the practicality, for example, of such ideas that one man wishing to take a course has to find


another 15 people, each of whom is prepared to pay £9 in advance to make it a valid course. By that proposal alone Cheshire is proposing to increase the cost of adult education by 450 per cent. in one year, which I do not believe people can sustain.
I want, now, to come to the financial arrangements. The House will know that there used to be a percentage grant, until 1958 I think, when we then introduced the general grant. When the general grant was established, it included a calculation by the Government for the provision of a further education service, including adult education, and a youth service. There was a calculation from the start of the general grant for an adult education service.
When we discussed next year's grant, for 1969–70, although the amount of increase that we wanted for local government as a whole was 3 per cent. in real terms, the increase for education which was allowed in the general grant was 3¾ per cent., and the increase for further education in real terms was 5 per cent. We have therefore expressed the Government's intention, and my right hon. Friend's intention, that further education should receive a measure of priority. What this means in practice is that Cheshire is receiving grant aid for adult education, but is proposing to spend its money elsewhere. Under the general grant arrangements the county is entitled to do this, but the morality of it being done is a matter which must be left to the electors and to the ratepayers of Cheshire.

Mr. Carlisle: Mr. Carlisle rose—

Mr. Howell: There is not enough time left for me to give way.
I turn now to Cheshire's own arrangements, and this is important. Cheshire has to get its priorities right within education, and also education within the whole of its local government provision. I understand that the general rate of expansion in Cheshire for next year, 1969–70, in money terms, not real terms, is 11·7 per cent. for the whole of its local government spending. The total figure which Cheshire is proposing for education is 11·6 per cent., just about the average, but I am interested in the figure which shows that the county's in-

crease in expenditure next year for roads is 20·3 per cent.
It is not: for me to determine whether Cheshire has got its priorities right, across the board of local government expenditure, or whether it has got it right in respect of education as a whole, but I cannot escape the thought that any reasonable assessment of these figures leads one to wonder whether a more modest roads programme nearer to the county's average growth for the whole of its services might not enable the county to carry on the adult education service reasonably intact. This is a reasonable point to make at this stage of the debate.
I turn now to the legal position, which is extremely important. The hon. Gentleman mentioned, quite rightly, section 41 of the 1944 Act, and this establishes the spirit of the Act. It is clear that it places on local education authorities a duty to run an adult education service and a further education service, but there is a proviso at the end of the section which says that under Section 42—the next section—a scheme of education has to be submitted to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Cheshire submitted its scheme of education, and this was approved in December, 1954.
The law is an involved matter which deserves continuing study, which I hope it will be given—in fact I am certain it will be—by hon. Members. The law is that Cheshire cannot carry out any adult education service not in the scheme of education, but once my right hon. Friend has approved it he has no power to insist that the county carries out all the things in the scheme that he has approved.
I was asked about sanctions, and what could be done. Never since 1944 have these sanctions been brought into play against any authority. This is one of the great difficulties, although I agree that it is a new situation. Certain sanctions are open to my hon. Friend at the end of the day under Section 99 of the 1944 Act and Section 4(1)(b) of the Local Government Act, 1966. They are as follows. He cannot anticipate a default in the service but he can take note of it when it has occurred. Second, in deciding whether an authority is in default, he


must have regard to the standards maintained by other authorities. In other words, in deciding whether the standard in Cheshire is good enough, he must have regard to all the 168 authorities, and he clearly cannot do that until he knows their proposals for 1969–70. He can use some sanctions. He can impose a duty on them by direction and Regulation and Parliament has the final sanction. By affirmative Order, it can withhold rate support grant if it is so pleased.
No-one can support many of these proposals, many of them in fields other than education—

Mr. Carlisle: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Howell: I am sorry, but I have no time. The hon. Gentleman should have sought an Adjournment debate himself if he is concerned about the position—

Mr. Grant-Ferris: But the Under-Secretary is making charges.

Mr. Howell: No, I am not making charges against the hon. Gentleman, or I would of course give way.
The position as we see it is that Cheshire intends to call a halt to virtually the whole of its adult education service and I do not believe that any hon. Gentleman would support that proposal—

Mr. Carlisle: Where does one make the cuts?

Mr. Howell: I have already answered that question. Although it is a matter for Cheshire to decide for itself and in which local democracy must be heard, I have already expressed my view, that they have not balanced their economies in education as a whole. It is impossible to maintain that they have when they

are making a major cessation in one activity—or a reduction compared with other local government services. We must take this into account.
Also, they have acted unilaterally and without consultation with the universities, the colleges and the W.E.A.s This also, in a day and age when we are used to so much consultation in education, is something which we must all regret. In respect of their proposal to cut down on grants to people who might get places—or are in the process of getting places—in colleges of further education and so on it could be a serious matter, affecting people's future careers. Therefore, to chop £60,000 off future grants to such students unilaterally will affect not only the students but, almost certainly, the finances and arrangements of the colleges themselves. I am sure that the right hon. Member, for Handsworth will agree that that is not the way in which we usually order our financial affairs in education.
All this is to be deplored. I greatly regret this situation. I hope that, even at this late hour, this debate, with its remarkable attendance for an Adjournment debate, and the expressions of concern on both sides will lead the authority to think again and reconsider these decisions so as to produce a more balanced solution to its problems. It goes without saying that my right hon. Friend and I will continue to watch the situation very carefully—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at six minutes to Eleven o'clock.